Preamble

[MR. SPEAKER in the Chair]

Oral Answers to Questions — FOREIGN SERVICE (OVERSEAS PERSONNEL, EMOLUMENTS)

Mr. Cary: asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether any cases have been brought to his notice regarding serving members of the Foreign Service whose salary and emoluments are now quite inadequate to meet the high cost of living which has been reached in some countries oversea; and whether any special contingency account exists to assist British representatives serving abroad to meet additional expenditure or pay off liabilities which were not foreseen when they accepted their appointments?

The Minister of State (Mr. Richard Law): There have been a number of cases when the emoluments of members of the Foreign Service abroad have proved insufficient to meet their reasonable necessary expenditure. In all such cases steps have been taken to remedy the position. No special contingency account exists. Increased expenditure of this nature is paid out of voted money.

Mr. Cary: In view of the fact that the high cost of living is likely to remain for some time, may I ask my right hon. Friend to keep this matter under continuous review in his Department, in relation to the expenses of Missions abroad? I am sure that it would not be the wish of Parliament or the nation that any of our Foreign Service representatives should get into personal debt.

Mr. Law: I entirely agree with my hon. Friend. Certainly we shall keep the matter under review.

Oral Answers to Questions — ITALY

Generals Ambrosio and Roatta

Mr. Mander: asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether he can

now make a statement about the position of Generals Ambrosio and Roatta?

Mr. Law: Our own preliminary investigations into the cases of Generals Ambrosio and Roatta have been completed. The Italian Government have been asked to remove General Roatta from his post. The case of General Ambrosio is still under consideration by the Commander-in-Chief.

Mr. Mander: In view of the principles of the Moscow Conference, can the right hon. Gentleman say whether these persons will be sent to Yugoslavia and tried there?

Mr. Law: This is a matter for the United Nations Commission.

Armistice Terms

Mr. Ivor Thomas: asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether he is now prepared to make a statement on the political, economic and financial terms of the Armistice with Italy?

Mr. Law: It has not yet been decided between the various Governments that the time has come to publish the terms.

Commander Locker-Lampson: Will the right hon. Gentleman guarantee that none of the ill-governed portions of the Italian Empire are ever returned to Italy?

Dr. Russell Thomas: Will it not be much to the advantage of Italy not to make too rapid a settlement, in view of the political and other confusion which there exists?

Oral Answers to Questions — ROAD ACCIDENTS (UNITED STATES SERVICE VEHICLES)

Mr. Oliver: asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether his attention has been drawn to the position of civilians injured in road accidents by the negligent driving of United States service vehicles and the refusal of the commanding general of the American Forces in this country to submit the cases to the jurisdiction of the civil courts; and whether any steps are being taken to obtain a satisfactory settlement of this matter with the Government of the United States?

Mr. Law: These matters are at present under active discussion with the Government of the United States and the United States authorities.

Mr. Godfrey Nicholson: Is my right hon. Friend aware that this great general principle applies to accidents caused by Dominion troops in this country, and will he see that a proper investigation is carried out into the whole question?

Mr. Law: As the matter is at present under discussion with the United States Government, I do not think it would be wise to enter into it now.

Mr. Nicholson: Is it not an extremely unsatisfactory state of affairs when one's constituents are getting killed or injured and there is no recourse open to them in law?

Mr. Keeling: Is my right hon. Friend aware that the American Army issue a document which purports to be an award by a tribunal, and that they thus act both as defendant and as judge?

Oral Answers to Questions — ARAB STATES

Mr. Price: asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether he can make any statement about the decisions of the conference of delegates from the Arab States of the Middle East which met recently in Cairo?

Mr. Law: If my hon. Friend will kindly inform me what conference he has in mind, I will be glad to give him any information possible.

Oral Answers to Questions — FRENCH COMMITTEE OF NATIONAL LIBERATION

Mr. Martin: asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether he will make efforts to procure the inclusion of representatives of the French Committee of National Liberation on all international committees dealing with European reconstruction in which French interests may either immediately or ultimately be affected?

Mr. Ivor Thomas: asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether he is aware that the French Committee of National Liberation do not propose to recognise any policy for the post-war treatment of Germany in the formation of which they have not participated; and whether he has any plan whereby France may be associated with the discussions of such matters by the other Allies?

Mr. Law: I have noted the statement issued by the French Committee of National Liberation. It is the desire of His Majesty's Government in the United Kingdom that representatives of the French Committee of National Liberation, as of the Allied Governments, shall be associated with all discussions relating to European reconstruction when this is appropriate.

Mr. Ralph Etherton: Will my right hon. Friend similarly consult representatives of Yugoslavia and Poland, when their interests are specifically under consideration?

Mr. Law: Certainly, Sir. The interests of all our Allies will be borne in mind.

Mr. Thomas: Will the right hon. Gentleman recognise that France has a very special interest in the treatment of Germany?

Oral Answers to Questions — CHINA

Coasting Trade

Mr. Shinwell: asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs the text of the agreement between the Chinese and British Governments affecting the shipping trade on the China coast; and whether it has been agreed that China shall have the exclusive right to this trade?

Mr. Law: My hon. Friend is referring, I understand, to the Treaty for the Relinquishment of Extra-Territorial Rights in China of 11th January, 1943, printed as Command Paper 6417. Under Article 1 (g) of the Annex to the Treaty, His Majesty's Government relinquished the special rights which they had previously enjoyed as regards the coasting trade. The question of any future arrangements to be made in this respect is one for consideration when the two Governments negotiate the comprehensive treaty referred to in Article 8 of the Treaty of the 11th January.

Mr. Shinwell: Is my right hon. Friend aware that these shipping rates were of great advantage to the shipping industry in this country and that if they are to be relinquished, as is suggested in the text of the agreement, a very severe burden will be imposed on our Mercantile Marine? Is it not desirable that this matter should be reviewed and that hon. Members


should have an opportunity of discussing the matter in order to correct what is undoubtedly a serious mistake?

Mr. Law: By the Treaty to which I have referred we have relinquished in China all extra-territorial rights. I suggest to my hon. Friend that we cannot have it both ways; we cannot relinquish extra-territorial rights in China and still retain them. As I have said in the original reply, there will probably in the future be some comprehensive commercial treaty, and when that comes up this matter will be considered.

Mr. Shinwell: Yes, but entirely apart from the relinquishment of extra-territorial rights—I do not disapprove of that at all—is my right hon. Friend aware that our own navigation laws provide that foreign coasters can trade on our coasts? Why should we abrogate a privilege that has been in operation for many years and thus strike a very deadly blow at our Mercantile Marine?

Mr. Law: We shall certainly bear that in mind when the time comes for the comprehensive arrangement.

Mr. De la Bère: The Mercantile Marine must have full consideration.

Commander Agnew: Will the ports of China be free for the ships of all nations to use?

Mr. Law: We must await events. I do not think I can pronounce on a hypothetical question.

Mr. Shinwell: Does not the agreement also provide for the complete abandonment of Hong Kong?

Mr. Law: No, Sir.

Mr. Hannah: Would it not be extremely unsatisfactory that anybody should have a monopoly in the China coast trade?

Mr. Kirkwood: Have not the Chinese a right to a monopoly of it?

Mission to United Kingdom

Mr. Wedderburn: asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether there is any prospect of an official Chinese Mission visiting this country?

Mr. Law: In view of the success which attended the good will Mission consisting of four British Members of Parliament, which visited China at the end of last

year, His Majesty's Government in the United Kingdom were anxious for an opportunity to receive a corresponding Mission to this country from China. They were confident that such a Mission would furnish an invaluable contribution to a better understanding between Great Britain and China, and would deepen still further the friendly relations which so happily exist between the two peoples. It would also provide His Majesty's Government with an opportunity for attempting to repay the hospitality so generously accorded to the British Mission last year. His Majesty's Ambassador was therefore recently instructed to convey to the Chinese Government a most cordial invitation for the despatch of a Mission to the United Kingdom. I am very happy to be able to announce that this invitation has now been accepted, and that a Chinese Mission, consisting of five members, has been appointed by the Chinese Government. The Mission hopes to arrive here in the near future and to stay about one month, during which period it will, of course, be the guests of His Majesty's Government. I take this opportunity to extend to the Mission, on behalf of His Majesty's Government, a most warm and hearty welcome.

Sir Herbert Williams: Can my right hon. Friend say whether a Chinese lady will be included in the Mission?

Mr. Law: I have no details.

Sir H. Williams: Having regard to the fact that a British woman Member of Parliament is now on a Mission to China, I wondered whether a Chinese lady could be included?

Oral Answers to Questions — EGYPT (FOREIGN JURISDICTION ORDER)

Sir H. Williams: asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs why the Foreign Jurisdiction Order (Egypt), made by His Majesty on 24th September and which came into operation on that date, was not available in the Library until 2nd November?

Mr. Law: A copy of the Foreign Jurisdiction Order (Egypt) was forwarded to the Librarian of the House on 26th October on which date the Order appeared in the London Gazette. It is impracticable to issue in this country Orders-in-Council which operate in other countries


until it is known that copies have reached and are available in the country concerned, and copies of this Order did not reach Egypt till the middle of October.

Sir H. Williams: Is it not important that when an Order is made which is subject to challenge in this House it should be made available to the Members of this House at the earliest possible moment?

Mr. Law: I think it is desirable that Orders of this kind should be available in this House at the earliest practicable moment, but the earliest practicable moment is the moment immediately after it has been received in the country concerned.

Sir H. Williams: Having regard to the fact that it is our own Government that made that decision, and since we might want to challenge that decision, ought it not to be open to us immediately to do so, instead of there being a delay of six weeks?

Mr. Law: I am informed that Orders of this kind under the Foreign Orders Jurisdiction Act have in fact never been laid in this House before they have been issued.

Oral Answers to Questions — SPAIN (MESSAGE TO PHILIPPINE ISLANDS)

Mr. John Dugdale: asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether His Majesty's Ambassador to Spain has protested against the acton of the Spanish Government in sending a message of congratulation to the Japanese puppet government in the Philippine Islands?

Mr. Law: No, Sir. I understand that the United States Government, who are principally concerned, are giving this matter serious consideration. His Majesty's Government are of course in close consultation with them.

Mr. Dugdale: Would it not be an act of courtesy to associate ourselves with any protest which the United States may in fact make?

Mr. Law: As I have stated, we are in close consultation with the United States Government on this matter, and we shall do our best to fall in with their wishes.

Mr. Gallacher: Would the right hon. Gentleman not consider relieving notorious

supporters of Franco from any positions they hold in the Government?

Oral Answers to Questions — LEAGUE OF NATIONS (CONTRIBUTIONS)

Major Petherick: asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether he will state the names of the six States which paid their full contributions to the League of Nations out of the 45 States which are members; and how long a defaulting State may be considered to remain a member?

Mr. Law: Yes, Sir. The following six countries paid their full contribution in 1942: United Kingdom, India, Canada, Australia, South Africa and New Zealand. As regards the second part of the Question, I have nothing to add to the reply which I gave to the hon. and gallant Member for Basingstoke (Squadron-Leader Donner) on 27th October.

Major Petherick: As the League of Nations has now become almost entirely supported by the British Empire, would not a permanent Imperial Conference serve a more useful purpose?

Mr. Law: I would not like to leave the impression with my hon. and gallant Friend that it is only these countries who have made their contribution. In addition to the countries I mentioned four countries not called upon to contribute have made token payments, and various other countries have paid up their arrears of contributions. In general I think it would be a great mistake to do anything to weaken an institution to which it is obvious His Majesty's Governments in all the Dominions attach so much importance.

Mr. Mander: May I ask the right hon. Gentleman whether he could publish a list of Members of this House who failed to give their contribution in support of the League in accordance with the promise made at the last General Election?

Mr. Lawson: Are these Questions an indication of the Conservative attitude towards international arrangements?

Sir Joseph Nall: How much longer is it proposed to continue the silly farce of Geneva?

Mr. Gallacher: You fellows liked Munich much better than Geneva.

Oral Answers to Questions — ROYAL AIR FORCE

Air Training Corps

Captain Gammans: asked the Secretary of State for Air whether, in the plans of the post-war work of the A.T.C., consideration is being given for visits to the Empire by A.T.C. cadets as part of their training?

The Secretary of State for Air (Sir Archibald Sinclair): I will certainly bear this point in mind.

Rosita Forbes (Lecture)

Mr. Burke: asked the Secretary of State for Air whether he has now received a report on the lecture given at Blackpool on 6th October by Rosita Forbes; and what action has been taken in the matter?

Sir A. Sinclair: No transcript of the lecture is available, but my information is that the lecture was well received by the audience and was not interpreted by them as being critical of our Russian Allies. The lecturer submitted to questions, none of which raised any point of criticism of the lecture. I know that my hon. Friend's purpose in asking this Question is to ensure that the opportunity of lecturing to airmen and airwomen is not abused. I share his feelings and I have taken steps to impress on lecturers and all concerned the importance of promoting mutual confidence in any reference made to our Allies.

Mr. Burke: Can the Secretary of State say from how many different sources he had complaints about this lecture?

Sir A. Sinclair: Yes, Sir, from one source, and that was from a gentleman who signed a name and gave an address, but when inquiries were made at the address it was found to have nothing whatever to do with him.

Mr. Shinwell: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that I have received a communication signed by 15 men who were present at the lecture?

Sir A. Sinclair: No, Sir, I was not aware of that.

Officers (Right of Interview)

Mr. Hutchinson: asked the Secretary of State for Air whether he will amend King's Regulations for the R.A.F. so as to afford to officers of the R.A.F. a right of interview on personal questions relat-

ing to appointments, promotions, etc., similar to the right to interview the Military Secretary enjoyed by Army officers under Regulation 534 of the King's Regulations for the Army?

Sir A. Sinclair: With the permission of their Air or other Officers Commanding, which may not be unreasonably with-held, officers of the Royal Air Force stationed at home already enjoy such a right. If, however, my hon. and learned Friend has a case in mind where difficulties have occurred, I will certainly look into it.

Mr. Hutchinson: Does the right hon. Gentleman not appreciate that this limited right of interview, with the permission of the Air Officer Commanding, is something which is essentially different from the right enjoyed by Army officers to interview the Military Secretary? Will he not consider the case with a view to affording the officers of the Royal Air Force the same rights as are enjoyed by officers of the Army?

Sir A. Sinclair: No, Sir, I think that in practice the rights are the same. In practice the officer gets his interview whenever it is reasonable that he should have one, but, as I say, if my hon. and learned Friend can give me particulars of any case he has in mind, I will look into it.

Mr. Hutchinson: In view of the unsatisfactory nature of the reply, I beg to give notice that I intend to raise this matter at some convenient time on the Adjournment.

Auxiliary Air Force

Sir Lindsay Everard: asked the Secretary of State for Air (1) whether he has considered the representations from the Leicestershire and Rutland Territorial Association with a view to the formation of an auxiliary air squadron for those counties as soon as possible after the war;
(2) whether he is able to make a statement on the future of the Auxiliary Air Force after the war?

Sir A. Sinclair: I am not able at the present time to make any statement about the post-war organisation and composition of the reserve and auxiliary forces, but the offer of the Leicestershire and Rutland Territorial Association to form an auxiliary air force squadron has been gratefully


noted, and will be considered in due course.

Women's Auxiliary Air Force, Northern Ireland

Mr. Dermot Campbell: asked the Secretary of State for Air why recruiting for the W.A.A.F. has closed in Northern Ireland?

Sir A. Sinclair: Except for a small number of women with high scientific or linguistic qualifications, recruitment throughout the United Kingdom for the W.A.A.F. has temporarily ceased with the completion of the current recruiting programme.

Mr. Campbell: Has the right hon. Gentleman borne in mind that in a country which is precluded from conscription if these girls are not allowed to join the Force they had selected they are rather inclined to join no Force at all, and their services are lost to the country?

Sir A. Sinclair: We should welcome these women from Northern Ireland in the W.A.A.F., but at the present time they are more urgently required for other war work.

Vatican City (Bombing)

Mr. Driberg: asked the Secretary of State for Air whether he can make any statement on the enemy propaganda allegation concerning the bombing of the Vatican City on Friday last?

Mr. I. Thomas: asked the Secretary of State for Air whether he will make it clear that no Allied aircraft have dropped bombs on the Vatican City?

Wing-Commander Hulbert: asked the Secretary of State for Air whether he can make any statement with regard to the enemy propaganda allegation that Allied air forces bombed the Vatican City on 5th November?

Sir A. Sinclair: Hon. Members will no doubt have seen the communiqué issued by Allied Headquarters in Algiers on 7th November which was in the following terms:
While it is manifestly impossible to establish beyond doubt the fall of bombs of aircraft participating in night operations, thorough investigation of missions carried out during the night of November 5–6 indicates that crews adhered to their definite instructions and did not bomb Vatican City.
I have nothing to add to this statement.

Mr. Driberg: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that the B.B.C. and others gave considerable prominence to this Nazi canard early on Saturday morning but that an official denial was not issued until late on Sunday night? Is it not rather unfortunate that Goebbels had the whole week-end to play up this story in the neutral countries, where our friends were handicapped by not having an official denial to quote?

Sir A. Sinclair: It is perfectly easy to push out an official denial promptly if one does not mind how strongly and firmly it is based on facts, but we are particularly careful to examine the facts before issuing a denial. Before this denial was issued the Commanding Officer out there exhaustively examined the facts.

Mr. Thomas: As the right hon. Gentleman's answer suggested that Allied aircraft are allowed to fly over the Vatican City, will he not issue instructions to stop it?

Hon. Members: Why?

Sir A. Sinclair: I cannot understand my hon. Friend's question, in view of the fact that I said that the crews adhered to their definite instructions and did not bomb the Vatican City.

Commander Locker-Lampson: Is it clear that the enemy have bombed the Vatican City?

Sir A. Sinclair: I do not think I can add further to the facts of the case given out by Allied Air Force Headquarters.

Oral Answers to Questions — CIVIL AIRPORTS

Lieut.-Colonel Sir Thomas Moore: asked the Secretary of State for Air whether his plans have yet matured for establishing permanent terminals in this country for civil air traffic; and, if so, where they are likely to be located?

Sir A. Sinclair: Airport specifications to meet the post-war needs of civil air transport are now being prepared, but the location of the airports required cannot be finally decided at the present time.

Oral Answers to Questions — GOVERNMENT OFFICIAL'S DISMISSAL

Mr. Craik Henderson: asked the Minister of Aircraft Production whether he can make a statement about the dis-


missal of Mr. Venner; whether he has inquired whether the dismissal was due to Mr. Venner having made certain complaints to the hon. Member for North-east Leeds with regard to the misuse of manpower; whether these complaints were true; and, if so, what action is being taken?

The Minister of Aircraft Production (Sir Stafford Cripps): Notice of discharge was sent to Mr. Venner on 21st October, 1943, on the ground of redundancy. It had no connection with Mr. Venner's complaints to my hon. Friend, of which I and my Department did not become aware until four days later. I am not able to comment on the complaints in question pending completion of an investigation for which I have arranged.

Oral Answers to Questions — MOTORWAYS

Mr. Keeling: asked the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of War Transport whether he is preparing detailed plans for motorways?

The Joint Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of War Transport (Mr. Noel-Baker): No, Sir, I am not at present able to make the detailed plans which would be required for the construction of motorways. I can, however, assure my hon. Friend that all aspects of future road policy, including the desirability of making motorways, are under active consideration.

Mr. Keeling: Has the mind of the Government changed since the hon. Member made his speech at Bournemouth, stating that plans for motorways were far advanced, or has the mind of the Government merely become more vague?

Mr. Noel-Baker: No, Sir. "Plans" is an ambiguous term. I meant merely plans for the design and lay-out of roads, not the plans based on siting and so on, which are required for construction.

Mr. Keeling: What is the difference between active consideration and any other kind of consideration?

Mr. Noel-Baker: Active consideration means that we are getting on.

Sir J. Nall: Is it appreciated that the scheme for motorways published in 1937 is of major importance, and that until a decision is given planning in many

areas is held up and nothing is being done?

Mr. Noel-Baker: If the hon. Member is referring to Sir Charles Bressey's Report, I am answering a Question upon that in a moment.

Sir J. Nall: I am not.

Oral Answers to Questions — TREFOREST TRADING ESTATE (CIVIL DEFENCE OFFICER'S UNIFORM)

Sir H. Williams: asked the Minister of Aircraft Production who authorised the uniform of the Civil Defence officer for the Treforest trading estate?

Sir S. Cripps: I am informed that the uniform, which is similar to that provided by many firms for their officers, was authorised by the Committee of Factory Occupiers set up to supervise the operation of the joint fire guard scheme on the trading estate.

Sir H. Williams: Was this forced upon the occupier by the officer of the Ministry of Aircraft Production who causes fire-watching to be so expensive wherever he appears?

Sir S. Cripps: On the contrary, when we asked whether we could give any assistance a negative was returned.

Oral Answers to Questions — TAXICAB SHARING

Mrs. Beatrice Wright: asked the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of War Transport whether greater publicity will be given to the necessity of sharing taxi-cabs, particularly at railway stations?

Mr. Noel-Baker: I am considering, with the railway companies, whether anything can be done at railway stations, by the display of notices or otherwise, to encourage the sharing of taxicabs.

Mrs. Wright: While appreciating my hon. Friend's reply, might I ask whether he is aware that more has to be done to publicise this matter? The co-operation of the public should be sought, and the taxi companies should be made to realise the necessity.

Mr. Noel-Baker: We are going to take all the measures in our power to achieve that.

Miss Rathbone: Should not the delicate question as to who pays the double fare be made clear, as well as the question of how far the taxi proprietors are to profit?

Mr. Noel-Baker: I believe that the Home Office have that under consideration.

Commander King-Hall: Is it not essential that, as in the United States, a proper schedule of fares should be made compulsory?

Mr. Noel-Baker: That is under consideration.

Mr. Evelyn Walkden: Would my hon. Friend take into consideration the practice of the police at London railway stations of stopping Service men from sharing taxis? The taxi men are very concerned about it.

Mr. Noel-Baker: I have never heard of that being done by the police. Service men are in the habit of sharing taxis, and I have been in consultation with the Home Secretary on that very point.

Oral Answers to Questions — COAL TRANSPORT (REORGANISATION)

Mr. Parker: asked the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of War Transport whether he is aware that a transport reorganisation scheme for the movement of coal was put into operation during the last war which brought about a saving to the railways of 700,000,000 ton-miles; whether he has put into operation any positive scheme for the reorganisation of coal transport to deal with the shortage of wagons and locomotives, which has been steadily increasing over the last three years; and what proportion of the total tonnage of goods traffic carried by the railways was represented by coal-class traffic before the war and at the present time, respectively?

Mr. Noel-Baker: As my answer is rather long, I will, with my hon. Friend's permission, circulate it in the OFFICIAL REPORT.

Following is the answer:

I am aware that in the last war a reorganisation scheme for the distribution of coal was prepared by the Board of Trade, which it was estimated at the time would save about 700,000,000 ton-miles a year.

According to my information, the scheme proved impracticable in certain respects, and was not fully implemented. I have no information as to the extent of the transport economies actually effected. In 1938 coal class traffic was about 65.3 per cent. of the total tonnage of merchandise traffic carried by the railways, but a great deal of it was short-haul traffic from pit to port for shipment. It is estimated that for the first half of 1943, coal class traffic was about 55 per cent. of the total merchandise traffic, but the average length of haul was substantially greater than in 1938. Moreover, the tonnage of merchandise traffic, other than coal, had increased greatly since before the war, the increase being about 30 per cent. in the case of mineral and heavy merchandise traffic and about 65 per cent. in the case of the lighter merchandise traffic.

Mr. Parker: asked the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of War Transport (1) whether the zoning of coal deliveries round depôts includes the assignment of a limited number of merchants to supply the requirements of a defined segment of the zone; and what precautions are taken to prevent overlapping;
(2) the names of the 26 places at which drastic reorganisation schemes are in operation for the distribution of coal; and the general nature of the schemes in question?

Mr. Noel Baker: Only the "more drastic" schemes eliminate overlapping between merchants or groups of merchants within the zone. They do so either by limiting individual merchants to specified districts, or by excluding them from districts where their share of the total trade is small. If my hon. Friend sees no objection, I will circulate in the OFFICIAL REPORT the names of the 27 places where these "more drastic" schemes are now in force.

Following are the names of the 27 places:
Leeds, Scunthorpe, Nottingham, Romford, Ongar, Oxford, Forest of Dean, Exmouth, Plymouth, Keynsham, Axminster, Bideford, Barnstaple, Bath, Buckfastleigh, Kingsbridge, South Molton, Montgomery and Forden, Aled District, Prestatyn, Burton-on-Trent, Hereford, Coseley, Whitchurch District, Preston, Fylde Rural District, Stalybridge.

Oral Answers to Questions — LONDON PASSENGER TRANSPORT ORDER

Mr. Wakefield: asked the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of War Transport why, having regard to the complexity of the Emergency Powers (Defence) London Passenger Transport Order (S.R. & O., No. 1514, 1943), no explanatory memorandum was attached?

Mr. Noel-Baker: No covering memorandum would add to the information given in the Order itself, unless it included lengthy quotations from the London Passenger Transport Act, 1933, and other documents. As the Order does not materially affect the general public, I decided that die additional expenditure involved would not be justified.

Oral Answers to Questions — TRANSPORT SERVICES

Manchester and North Staffordshire

Mr. Ellis Smith: asked the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of War Transport whether consideration has or will be given to the need for a public transport authority, based upon the public ownership of transport, to cover the needs of the people within an approximate 50 miles radius of Manchester, and to the urgent need, after the termination of hostilities, for the electrification of the railways within the area, with new lines where required?

Mr. Noel-Baker: My Noble Friend is always ready to consider any sound scheme for promoting co-ordination and increased efficiency in transport services, which local authorities and transport undertakings may lay before him. The scope for further electrification of the railways is a matter which my Noble Friend will consider in relation to plans for post-war development. It is, I understand, already under examination by the railway companies themselves.

Mr. Smith: Has not the time arrived for the Minister to take the initiative in this kind of work? If not, is it intended that when schemes are prepared for the post-war situation the initiative shall be taken by the Minister?

Mr. Noel-Baker: These matters are under consideration. I am not sure that it would be right for the Ministry to take the initiative in matters which are primarily of local importance, when the local authorities have not themselves done it.

Sir J. Nall: Is my hon. Friend aware that no such plan as is mentioned in the Question has been proposed by any responsible authority in tie Manchester Division?

Mr. Noel-Baker: I believe that that is so.

Mr. Ellis Smith: Is my hon. Friend aware that the workpeople's organisations in the vicinity have given great consideration to the urgent needs of this area for the post-war situation?

Mr. Noel-Baker: I shall be very glad to receive their proposals.

Mr. Ellis Smith: asked the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of War Transport whether it is intended to improve the transport facilities in the North Staffordshire area and between the areas to Stafford by road and Manchester by rail?

Mr. Noel-Baker: During the past year, considerable improvements have been made in the road transport services for workers in the Potteries and between the Potteries and Stafford. Further improvements will, I hope, be made where they are most urgently required and where the necessary drivers and conductors can be found. I regret that I cannot encourage my hon. Friend to hope that increases can now be made in the train services, either in the North Staffordshire area, or between that area and Manchester. I must add that the existing services compare favourably with the present restricted services elsewhere.

Mr. Ellis Smith: asked the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of War Transport the number of new omnibuses allocated per 20,000 of the population covered by the areas covered by the Devon General, the Manchester area and the North Staffordshire area; and can he give an assurance that new vehicles are being delivered as quickly as possible and that maintenance staffs are now being given a higher priority?

Mr. Noel-Baker: I regret that the information for which my hon. Friend asks in the first part of his Question is not available, and could not easily be obtained. New omnibuses are allocated to regions according to need. In addition, considerable numbers of existing omnibuses have been transferred to those regions where


the need is greatest. I am happy to assure my hon. Friend that new vehicles are being delivered as rapidly as possible, and that satisfactory arrangements have been made to meet the demands of the passenger transport industry for maintenance personnel.

Mr. Mathers: How many new omnibuses are being provided at present?

Mr. Noel-Baker: I have not got the total figure, but for the three regions which include the area mentioned in the Question the figures are: South Western Region, since July, 1940, 515 new vehicles; North Western Region, 397; Midland Region, 566.

Mr. Mathers: Is production still continuing?

Mr. Noel-Baker: Yes, Sir, on a restricted scale.

Carriage of Sugar (Lorries)

Mr. Magnay: asked the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of War Transport why road transport vehicles have been directed by the road haulage organisation of his Department to Bury St. Edmunds to pick up sugar for carriage to Ipswich for transference to coastwise shipping to London, the vehicles then receiving instructions to return empty to London?

Mr. Noel-Baker: The refinery to which this raw sugar was consigned could only accept its delivery by water.

Mr. Magnay: Does the Minister think that it is advisable, in view of the demand for economy in tyres and in motor spirit, to run these lorries from Ipswich to London—64 miles—without a load every time they come?

Mr. Noel-Baker: We have made every effort to back-load these lorries the full distance with sugar, but, unfortunately, the refinery cannot accept it by road. We are trying to make arrangements by which this shall be done, but at present they have not been completed.

Mr. Stokes: Can the hon. Gentleman say whether these lorries remain there, or do they run every day?

Mr. Noel-Baker: They are going up with potential loads from London to that area,

and on their return journey they carry this sugar from Bury St. Edmunds to Ipswich, where it is put on water.

Oral Answers to Questions — MERCHANT NAVY

Second Mate's Certificate Examination

Mr. E. P. Smith: asked the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of War Transport whether, in view of the fact that a cadet in the Merchant Navy having served a period of three years at sea is expected to come home and take a promotion course of two or, if necessary, three months, and is paid for the first two months by the Merchant Navy Pool and for the third has to depend upon his unemployment insurance of 16s. per week for all expenses, he will consider extending the pay by the Merchant Navy Pool to cover the third month, and thus end the anomaly of paying such a cadet as an unemployed person when, in fact, he is fully occupied?

Mr. Noel-Baker: As I informed my hon. Friend last week, the National Maritime Board made an agreement in July, 1942, under which leave ashore with pay is allowed for two months to cadets and deck ratings who are candidates for the second mate's certificate examination. This agreement had the full approval of the officers' and men's societies, and I should not feel justified in asking the Board to reconsider it.

Mr. Smith: Does the hon. Gentleman consider that 16s. a week for total living expenses ashore is the right or proper remuneration for these lads in the Merchant Navy?

Mr. Noel-Baker: These all receive the new concession since the war, and indeed it is a concession that unemployment pay should be allowed for this purpose. I would point out to my hon. Friend that the agreement made by the industry with the National Maritime Board is based on their belief, which they all accept, that two months should be enough for the average man to get through this examination.

Mr. Shinwell: Are not these men fully employed in the course of training and not unemployed at all, and if they are in the course of training which is so necessary in order to get personnel for the Mercantile Marine; why not pay them for the third month?

Mr. Noel-Baker: The point really is that the period of two months ought to be enough for the average man to get through, and if you allowed three months, the maximum would tend to become the minimum, and everybody would take it, and the general interest would suffer.

Repatriated Prisoners of War (Pensions)

Lieut.-Colonel Sir Ian Fraser: asked the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of War Transport whether he will retain on full pay and allowances all sick and wounded returned prisoners of war in the Merchant Service until their economic position has been assured by the settlement of their pension claims and/or the securing of employment?

Mr. Noel-Baker: Merchant seamen who return from enemy prison camps are given one month's leave with basic pay and subsistence allowance. It should normally be possible for the Ministry of Pensions to decide within that period what pension, if any, should be allowed. Special arrangements, however, are being made to ensure, as far as practicable, that there shall be no gap between the stoppage of pay and the award of a pension. If any such case should happen, I should be happy to give it special and sympathetic consideration.

Oral Answers to Questions — E.N.S.A. (QUESTIONS TO MINISTERS)

Mr. Cocks: asked the Prime Minister to whom Questions should be addressed relating to the work of E.N.S.A. among the three Services, the Land Army, the factory workers, miners, etc.?

The Prime Minister (Mr. Churchill): E.N.S.A. is a subsidiary of N.A.A.F.I. Questions about N.A.A.F.I are usually addressed to the Secretary of State for War. It may, however, be more convenient to address Questions about entertainments provided for a particular Service to the Minister responsible for that Service.

Oral Answers to Questions — NATIONAL MILITARY TRAINING

Sir L. Everard: asked the Prime Minister whether it is proposed to adopt a system of national military training after the war?

The Prime Minister: I hope so: but it is too early to pronounce.

Oral Answers to Questions — STATE CONTROL OF INDUSTRY (HOME SECRETARY'S SPEECHES)

Major Petherick: asked the Prime Minister whether the speech made by the Home Secretary on Government control and economic affairs to the Fabian Society recently represents the policy of His Majesty's Government?

The Prime Minister: My right hon. Friend the Home Secretary informs me that he made it clear at the beginning of the speech referred to that he was speaking as a Socialist to his fellow Socialists of the Fabian Society. There was no implication in the speech that he was speaking for the Government.

Earl Winterton: Will the Prime Minister make it clear that members of the Coalition Government have a perfect right in this Government, as in previous Governments, to speak to their own political associations as my right hon. Friend does to the Conservative Association and as Liberals do to the Liberal Association?

The Prime Minister: I do not think that any particular advertisements of these facts are needed from me. In my view the less divergencies are emphasised the better.

Major Lloyd: asked the Prime Minister whether the views on State control of industry after the war expressed by the Secretary of State for the Home Department at a public meeting in the Caird Hall, Dundee, on 3rd October last, represent the policy of His Majesty's Government?

The Prime Minister: I would refer my hon. and gallant Friend to the answer which I gave on 12th October last in reply to a Question by my hon. Friend the Member for South Croydon (Sir H. Willaims), to which I have nothing to add.

Mr. McKinlay: Is it the intention of the Government to ease the situation on the other side by making a declaration that it is the purpose to withdraw the controls immediately the war is finished?

The Prime Minister: No, Sir. This would not be the moment at which I should be inclined to make any new declaration.

Mr. Shinwell: Can the Prime Minister say whether the views of the right hon. Gentleman the Home Secretary are having any influence on the Government?

The Prime Minister: We derive the greatest advantage from the counsel of the Home Secretary on a great many subjects, and I hope we shall long continue to do so.

Mr. Shinwell: But apart from deriving counsel and guidance, has the right hon. Gentleman any intention of ever applying any of these suggestions?

The Prime Minister: My hon. Friend is dealing with the speech delivered in the Caird Hall, Dundee, and I should not Eke to try to unravel this tangled skein at this moment.

Mr. Kirkwood: Will the Prime Minister support the Home Secretary in the statements that he makes?

The Prime Minister: I am afraid I am a life-long opponent of Socialism.

Oral Answers to Questions — SYNTHETIC RUBBER PRODUCTION

Mr. Neil Maclean: asked the Minister of Production whether butadiene can be made from alcohol or coal; and whether, as this is an essential ingredient of buna rubber, he will cause experiments to be made so that the manufacture of synthetic rubber can be developed?

The Minister of Production (Mr. Lyttelton): I am informed that butadiene can be made from alcohol or coal and that a good deal of information is available regarding the processes. The importance of synthetic rubber production in this country as a war measure is affected by the fact that supplies are now obtainable from the United States. I have recently however undertaken to make materials and building labour available for a scheme for making synthetic rubber by a company in this country if I can do so without affecting production of higher priority.

Mr. Maclean: Can the right hon. Gentleman say whether, in carrying on this production, there is any competition or any attempt to stop it by the rubber producers?

Mr. Lyttelton: No, Sir.

Mr. Shinwell: asked the Minister of Production whether he has now completed his inquiry into the matter of producing synthetic rubber in this country; and when will a decision be reached?

Mr. Lyttelton: I have now authorised the issue of the first requirements of materials to the company referred to in the replies given to my hon. Friend on previous occasions. The company is financing the project itself and I have informed them that I will authorise the use of building labour and further materials so far as they are available and not required for work of higher priority.

Mr. Shinwell: Can the right hon. Gentleman say the amount of production with which this industry is to experiment? Is it to be on a large scale or on a small scale?

Mr. Lyttelton: I cannot from memory give the exact production, but it is a commercial production and not an experimental one.

Mr. Shinwell: Do I understand that the right hon. Gentleman is going to encourage it for all he is worth?

Mr. Lyttelton: I must encourage it only to the extent that it does not interfere with work of higher priority.

Oral Answers to Questions — SERVICE CLOTHING AND EQUIPMENT (SALE)

Mr. Keeling: asked the Minister of Production whether he is aware that large quantities of Service dress caps, metal buttons and woven or metal badges are sold in shops to non-commissioned members of the Forces, despite such caps being normally unauthorised and despite plastic buttons and printed or plastic badges being free issues; whether he releases materials for the manufacture of these articles; and whether, in the interests of security and of economy of materials and labour, he will prohibit the sale of any non-commissioned clothing or equipment normally issued officially?

Mr. Lyttelton: No releases of material are made for this purpose, but no doubt there are stocks of the finished articles and the small quantities of material that are required for work of this kind are not impossible to obtain, for instance, from


scrap. A prohibition of the sale of such goods would not be warranted as a means of saving the very small quantities of material that may be used.

Mr. Keeling: Would my right hon. Friend ask the Service Departments to investigate this wasteful duplication of equipment and also to examine the question of security?

Mr. Lyttelton: Yes, Sir, I will get into touch with my right hon. Friends.

Oral Answers to Questions — MOTOR CAR TYRES

Mr. Hannah: asked the Minister of Production why, as we have a surplus of rubber in the country, long-distance road-transport contractors are compelled to purchase part-worn, retread and other unserviceable tyres?

Mr. Lyttelton: The supplies of natural rubber in the British Empire must be shared with our Allies, and the needs of the United Nations require that economy in the use of rubber should not be relaxed. Road transport contractors are not required to use part-worn and retreaded tyres which are unserviceable.

Sir Edward Campbell: Can my right hon. Friend say whether it is a fact, as stated in the Question, that there is a surplus of rubber?

Mr. Lyttelton: If we were waging the war alone our supplies of indigenous rubber in the British Empire are more than sufficient to meet our own requirements, and there is a substantial exportable surplus, which is sent to the United States.

Oral Answers to Questions — FACTORY, RENFREWSHIRE (ALTERNATIVE WORK)

Major Lloyd: asked the Minister of Production whether he is aware of the concern with which the workers at a certain war factory in Renfrewshire view his decision to cease production very shortly; and whether he can arrange for alternative products at this factory so that its trained and efficient personnel can be retained?

Mr. Lyttelton: The question whether alternative work can be found for the factory in question is being investigated as a matter of urgency, but I am unable

to say at present what success is likely to attend our efforts.

Major Lloyd: Does my right hon. Friend realise that a number of these people are due for discharge in the next few days and that it is a matter of great urgency? Will he consider meanwhile allowing production to continue pending a further decision?

Mr. Lyttelton: I know that it is a matter of urgency. The date to which my hon. and gallant Friend refers is 16th November. There are one or two projects under consideration. I will keep closely in touch with the matter in the next few days.

Mr. Gallacher: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that there is deep feeling in Scotland about the closing of factories? Will he give particular attention to this factory, which is new and well equipped, and see that it is kept going?

Mr. Buchanan: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that this factory, which in the past has suffered a great deal of distress, is very up to date and very capable? Will he not consider making an effort to see that its first-class machinery can be used?

Mr. Lyttelton: The machinery is of a very special nature. Our difficulty is to get alternative production. I would not minimise the difficulty, but I am doing my best.

Oral Answers to Questions — FOOD SUPPLIES

Service Women (Rations)

Mr. Keeling: asked the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Food whether women in the Services who are messed are still receiving more meat, bacon, butter, margarine, sugar and jam than miners who eat at home; and whether, in the interests of coal production, he will reconsider the disparity?

The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Food (Mr. Mabane): As regards the first part of my hon. Friend's Question, maximum messing allowances for Service personnel cannot properly be compared with civilian household rations. As regards the second part of the Question, my hon. Friend is no doubt aware that my Department is prepared to arrange for the supply of food on category


A scale for all pits at which canteen facilities are provided, and that it has been the policy of the Departments concerned to encourage and assist the provision of good meals for workers "on the job." Such provision has been greatly extended in mines and factories during the war period, in order that full nutritional needs may be met.

Mr. Keeling: Will the hon. Gentleman answer the first part of the Question, or explain why he cannot answer it?

Mr. Mabane: It would not be proper or reasonable or fair to make comparisons which would not indicate the way in which the nutritional requirements of both categories are being met. While the answer to the first part of the Question is that the women in the Services do receive more of these particular foods than miners, that does not give the whole picture.

British Restaurants

Mr. Liddall: asked the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Food why British Restaurants get larger allowances of rationed commodities than privately-owned restaurants of like size?

Mr. Mabane: British Restaurants do not get larger allowances of rationed foods than comparable privately-owned restaurants. They get the same allowances.

Olive Oil

Mr. Douglas: asked the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Food whether he will arrange to import olive oil from the Mediterranean area instead of wine?

Mr. Mabane: No olive oil is at present available from the Mediterranean area.

Cocoa (Producers' Prices)

Sir Leonard Lyle: asked the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Food whether, in view of the fact that in 1942 His Majesty's Government made £1,350,000 profit by trading in cocoa, he can state the price paid to the producers in the West Indies and in West Africa, respectively?

Mr. Mabane: 1.7 per cent. of cocoa purchased by my Department is from the West Indies, for which the price to the producer ranged in 1942 from £38 10s.

to £89 10s. a ton according to quality and grade. West African purchases are made from the West African Produce Control Board, but I understand that the producers' prices were approximately £15 a ton on the Gold Coast and £14 10s a ton in Nigeria for the season ended 30th September, 1942.

Sir L. Lyle: Is this considered a remunerative price by the producers, and, if not, is it not a mistake to cut the price too low when our object is to improve conditions?

Mr. Mabane: The arrangement to reduce the price is a matter for the Colonial Office, and the Question should be addressed to the Secretary of State.

Emergency Storage

Captain Plugge: asked the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Food whether, in addition to potatoes, he proposes to effect special storage of other commodities for emergency food next year?

Mr. Mabane: Provision will continue to be made so far as practicable to meet all future contingencies.

Sugar (Price)

Sir H. Williams: asked the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Food whether it is intended to pay compensation to food distributors who incurred losses in connection with the increase in the price of sugar of 1d. per lb. in September, 1943?

Mr. Mabane: As the answer is long I will, with my hon. Friend's permission, circulate a statement in the OFFICIAL REPORT.

Following is the statement:

No, Sir. The price of sugar to the public was increased by 1d. per lb. on 19th September, 1943. In order to minimise the special profits which would otherwise have accrued to dealers, wholesalers and retailers who hold stocks of sugar, it was arranged that the price of sugar purchased by distributors should be increased from dates earlier than 19th September, with the intention that, on average, the distributors would dispose of their stocks at the old price and would be left on 19th September with stocks purchased at the higher price. A similar policy was pursued when the price of


sugar was reduced by 1d. per lb. in December, 1941. This policy is intended to minimise stock profits and losses arising out of changes in controlled prices. It is recognised that under this procedure distributors holding stocks in excess of the average benefit when prices are increased and lose when prices are reduced, and the converse applies to distributors holding stocks below the avergae. A meticulous adjustment of the profits and losses of food traders on the occasion of a price change would, however, involve a nation-wide inventory of stocks which could not be justified in present circumstances. These individual differences are incidental to trading, and my Noble Friend does not intend to pay compensation to distributors of sugar who have incurred losses in connection with the recent price increase nor to recover profits from those distributors who made profits on the same occasion. The general policy being followed by my Department in this matter is, I understand, acceptable to food traders. Discussions are, however, taking place between representatives of the trade and officers of the Ministry on the detailed procedure to be adopted in future cases.

Oral Answers to Questions — TANK PRODUCTION

Mr. Stokes: asked the Minister of Supply the type and name of British tanks, of which production is continued, mounting guns over 3-inch calibre, which are considered battleworthy?

The Minister of Supply (Sir Andrew Duncan): It is clearly not in the public interest to give any such information.

Mr. Stokes: Does not the right hon. Gentleman think it a disgraceful thing in the fifth year of the war there is still no adequate British tank of the kind described in the Question?

Sir A. Duncan: I think that is a gross exaggeration in every respect.

Commander Locker-Lampson: Are not the Germans aware that these tanks are battleworthy?

Mr. Hammersley: Will the right hon. Gentleman lend the weight of his influence to the request that we should have a Debate in Secret Session, when all aspects of the matter could be considered?

Mr. Hammersley: asked the Minister of Supply whether the new Director-General of Tank Design and Development is now in charge of tank production?

Sir A. Duncan: No, Sir. But future arrangements are under consideration in view of the impending return to his firm of the present Director-General of Tank Production.

Mr. Hammersley: In view of the fact that the former Director-General of Research and Development has been sent to America and that my right hon. Friend has just informed us that the Director-General of Production has resigned, what are we to understand—

Mr. Speaker: The hon. Member is making a speech and not asking a question.

Mr. Hammersley: The question I am putting is, What has happened in the organisation that these two important people have left?

Sir A. Duncan: These two important people have not left on any ground of disagreement of any kind or description. The Director-General of Tank Production was loaned to us by his firm over a year ago, with a warning that there must be a time limit because of changes taking place in his firm, and it is with great public spirit that they have allowed us to keep his services as long as they have.

Mr. Stokes: Who is the Director-General of Tank Production?

Sir A. Duncan: Mr. A. Boyd.

Commander Agnew: Did I understand my right hon. Friend to say that the Crown was warned? Has not the Crown power of life and death?

Sir A. Duncan: Certainly the Crown has power of life and death. There is, however, no doubt that, unless for the purposes of our own production we regarded this as a reasonable thing, we should not allow it to happen.

Mr. Hammersley: Is it not desirable, in view of the fact that these two people have left the organisation now, that we should have an opportunity of discussing the matter in Secret Session?

Sir A. Duncan: Neither has yet left the organisation.

Mr. Stokes: Is it not a fact that Mr. Boyd is leaving out of complete disgust?

Sir A. Duncan: Certainly not. There is not a vestige of truth in that suggestion.

Mr. Hammersley: asked the Minister of Supply why, following a recent long distance comparative trial of British and American tanks, it is now found desirable to have a second trial?

Sir A. Duncan: These trials are not related to one another. Trials of tanks, including comparative performance tests, are constantly in progress as part of the normal development programme.

Mr. Hammersley: Is it not a gross waste of public money that there should have been a trial of these vehicles, and now there is going to be another, costing scores of thousands?

Sir A. Duncan: Trials play a very essential part in the production of these machines.

Oral Answers to Questions — MINISTRY OF INFORMATION

Hansard and United States Congressional Record

Mr. Astor: asked the Minister of Information whether he will propose an arrangement whereby Hansard would be supplied free to any member of the Congress of the United States of America who desired it, in return for which Members of Parliament would be entitled to receive the Congressional Record?

The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Information (Mr. Thurtle): Copies of Hansard go to the Library of Congress, and the Library of this House receives a copy of the Congressional Record. So far as I know, these facilities have been found adequate for their purpose.

Mr. Astor: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that, human nature being what it is, that arrangement means that M.P.s do not read the Congressional Record and that Members of Congress do not read Hansard? Will he see whether this suggestion cannot be considered?

Mr. Thurtle: Our information is that there is no general demand for these facilities. If we find a queue in the Library waiting to read the Congressional Record, we will reconsider the matter.

Commander King-Hall: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that his information is not up-to-date in the matter? I have recently been to Washington and have been requested by Members of Congress to see if anything could be done to provide facilities for them to get copies of Hansard.

Mr. Thurtle: We have received no request from America for more copies than the one they are receiving.

Major Petherick: Will the hon. Gentleman begin by issuing to every Member of Parliament a copy of the official record of another place?

Colonel Arthur Evans: Will the hon. Gentleman send a dozen copies of Hansard instead of one and see how that experiment works?

Coalmining (Recruitment Publicity)

Mr. Sloan: asked the Minister of Information the total cost of the various campaigns, including advertising, for recruitment to the coalmining industry?

Mr. Thurtle: The total expenditure incurred on publicity for recruitment to the coalmining industry is approximately £24,000.

Mr. Cocks: How many recruits have you got for your £24,000?

Mr. Thurtle: There were 3,366 who opted for the mining industry of those called up, and there were 3,500 recruits.

Mr. Cocks: Why does not the Ministry employ a better advertisement writer?

Mr. Thurtle: I would point out that the decision to advertise for these recruits was a Government decision. We were only the instrument for carrying out that decision.

Mr. Sloan: Is my hon. Friend aware that money was wasted by advertising in newspapers that could bring no result at all to the mining industry?

Mr. Thurtle: That is a matter beyond my province. We were simply carrying out the decision of the Government.

Broadcasts (Members of Parliament)

Mr. Moelwyn Hughes: asked the Minister of Information whether he is aware that more than half the talks in


English, broadcast on Home and Forces Programmes during the 12 months beginning 1st October, 1943, by lion. Members were broadcast by members of the Conservative Party; and whether he proposes to take steps to correct this discrimination?

Mr. Thurtle: No, Sir. I explained the B.B.C.'s policy in this matter in the answer I gave on 4th November to a Question put to me by the hon. Member for Lincoln (Mr. Liddall). My hon. and learned Friend will appreciate that the B.B.C. invites Members of Parliament to talk or participate in programmes for many purposes that have no political significance.

Mr. Hughes: Is my hon. Friend not aware that the figures lave been computed from the returns provided in the OFFICIAL REPORT by his Department? Therefore, why do I get the answer, "No," to the first part of my Question?

Mr. Thurtle: I think my hon. and learned Friend does not appreciate the fact that in these talks were included all sorts of matters which have no relation to politics at all. For instance, however ingenious Members of Parliament might be, it would be difficult for them to get any party political content at all into subjects like these: "Tunes to my Taste," "Our Remote Ancestors," "The Chairing of the Bard" and "Desert Island Discs."

Mr. Hughes: But cannot such matters as my hon. Friend has referred to be found on both sides and not be entirely limited? Including that, is it still not true to say that the majority of talks given by Members of this House are given by members of the Conservative Party?

Mr. Thurtle: My hon. and learned Friend must face this fact: for good or ill nearly two-thirds of the Members of this House are members of the Conservative Party.

Dr. Morgan: Is my hon. Friend basing Tat answer on professional knowledge or partisan knowledge?

Oral Answers to Questions — TELEPHONE CALL-BOXES

Colonel Greenwell: asked the Postmaster-General whether operators on trunk telephone circuits are instructed to

see that audible conversation is possible between a call-box and a subscriber before demanding the surrender of the call-box fee; and whether there is any means of identifying an operator who puts through a call on which conversation is not possible?

The Postmaster-General (Captain Crookshank): The answer to both parts of the Question is "Yes, Sir."

Oral Answers to Questions — BUILDINGS (MAINTENANCE EXPENDITURE)

General Sir George Jeffreys: asked the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Works whether he is aware, in respect of the allowance for maintenance expenditure, that the present system under which not more than £100 may be expended without special licence on any one item of Schedule A assessment, operates very unfairly in the case of agricultural holdings, as a farm comprising several houses and buildings assessed jointly can only get the same allowance as a single cottage; and whether he will take steps to do away with this anomaly?

The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Works (Mr. Hicks): I cannot admit that because a licence has to be applied for, the system operates unfairly. The test is whether the work is permitted. Maintenance licences covering expenditure in excess of £100 in a period of 12 months are freely granted on the recommendation of the county war agricultural executive committees for essential work to farm buildings and houses?

Sir G. Jeffreys: Is it not quite illogical to allow the same sum for property worth many thousands of pounds and property worth only a few hundred pounds?

Mr. Hicks: For maintenance work on farm buildings and houses we rely upon the recommendation of the county war agricultural executive committee. If they recommend, we freely grant permission.

Sir G. Jeffreys: asked the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Works whether he is aware that owners, architects and builders are still compelled to apply to his Department for a building licence where it is proposed to expend more than £100 on the property included in any one Schedule A assessment; and that, while local authorities can now carry


out essential work costing £250 in the case of a house and £200 in the case of a flat without a licence, whether he will place both parties on the same plane of freedom from applying for a licence?

Mr. Hicks: In view of the shortage of labour and materials my Noble Friend is not at present proposing to alter the procedure, now operating in respect of all types of property, under which private persons must apply for a licence where it is proposed to expend more than £100 in a period of 12 months. Moreover, if the limit were raised as suggested, it would in many cases enable a private owner to carry out non-essential work. It is, of course, the policy of the Ministry to grant licences for essential work to dwellings in all proper cases, on the same basis as that authorised for local authorities.

Sir G. Jeffreys: Is my hon. Friend aware that great difficulties are put in the way of getting licences? Would it not be more logical and sensible if a lump sum was allowed for the whole property rather than this level amount of £100 on every assessment?

Mr. Hicks: In regard to any dwelling which it is necessary to repair, if an individual will make application to the local authority and a certificate of essentiality is agreed to by them on the same basis as if the local authority had carried out the work themselves, then in every case we grant a licence. There must, however, be control over unnecessary expenditure.

Sir William Davison: Is it not a fact that local authorities say that they must have choice of tenants and that often the private owner is unable to replace his tenant himself?

Mr. Hicks: That has no application to the answer I have given.

PALESTINE (JEWISH IMMIGRATION)

The Secretary of State for the Colonies (Colonel Oliver Stanley): The Statement of Policy relating to Palestine which was issued as a White Paper in May, 1939, provided for the admission to Palestine of 75,000 Jewish immigrants during the period of five years ending 31st March, 1944, subject to the criterion of the economic absorptive capacity of the

country. It was contemplated that there should be an annual quota of 10,000 and, in addition, as a contribution towards the solution of the Jewish refugee problem, 25,000 refugees would be admitted as soon as adequate provision for their maintenance was assured.
The war has prevented the fulfilment of this programme. The number of Jews who entered Palestine legally or illegally up to 30th September, 1943, against the total of 75,000 to be admitted under the existing quota system is 43,922. There are thus 31,078 who, it may be fairly assumed, would have reached it before 31st March, 1944, but for the exigencies of the war. His Majesty's Government have been considering this position, and have reached the conclusion that it would be inequitable to close the doors of Palestine to these persons on account of the time factor. No effort will be lacking on the part of His Majesty's Government to facilitate their arrival, subject to the criterion of economic absorptive capacity.

Earl Winterton: Will my right hon. and gallant Friend make it clear, in order to avoid disappointment, that one of the great difficulties about moving refugees to Palestine or anywhere else is the question of shipping and that that will not necessarily become easier in the next few months?

Colonel Stanley: I am glad my noble Friend has raised that point. I hope nobody will think that because of this there is any guarantee that these unfortunate people will be able to reach Palestine. All we have done is to remove what might be a legal obstacle.

Sir Percy Harris: But will the Government make it as easy as possible, in view of the unfortunate position of these people?

Colonel Stanley: The chief obstacle is the domination of Hitler over Europe.

Commander Locker-Lampson: Does not my right hon. and gallant Friend think that in this connection Jews come first?

Miss Rathbone: While I recognise the value of the concession which has been made, would the right hon. and gallant Gentleman let us know whether the Government also intend to remove the restriction on the number of adults entering on the immigration quota, as hitherto


the fact that the majority have to be children with only accompanying adults has been the greatest obstacle to the entry of the permitted number?

Colonel Stanley: That is quite a different question. Perhaps the hon. Lady will put it down.

Mr. Pickthorn: Is the right hon. and gallant Gentleman's declaration to be taken as settling the question of principle that rations of immigration can be kept over from year to year and accumulated?

Colonel Stanley: I am not sure that I quite appreciate the hon. Gentleman's point. I think that this settles no question of principle but merely one of equity. Something which would have happened under the White Paper but for the war has been put right.

Mr. Pickthorn: Is the right hon. and gallant Gentleman really clear to the House in his distinction between principle and equity; and is not the question quite clear—does this or does it not settle as a matter of principle, that where a maximum quota of immigration is fixed for a year any number not reached in that year can be carried on to the next year, and the next year, and so on indefinitely?

Colonel Stanley: I am afraid that I still do not see the hon. Gentleman's point. The quota system would come to an end at the end of March, and there was no question, therefore, of succeeding years. All that this settles is that those who did not get in by 31st March, because they were prevented by the war, will not be kept out because of that fact.

Mr. Mack: Having regard to the expected improvement in the military position in that area and elsewhere, is it possible that a number of these refugees may be subsequently saved, and should not greater facilities be accorded to them to enter Palestine as soon as practicable?

Colonel Stanley: We do what we can. I am afraid I cannot forecast as optimistically as the hon. Gentleman the future course of military events in that area.

Mr. Mack: Do I understand the right hon. and gallant Gentleman to mean that after having discharged what he regards as his obligation to these 30,000 odd Jews to enter Palestine, no further numbers would enter in any circumstances?

Colonel Stanley: That is quite a different matter.

Mr. Hammersley: Is it inherent in the right hon. and gallant Gentleman's statement that additional shipping facilities will be given to the 32,000 as and when shipping facilities are available?

Colonel Stanley: The hon. Gentleman must realise that the difficulty at the moment is that these unfortunate people are not allowed to leave.

Miss Rathbone: Will the right hon. and gallant Gentleman give early attention to the point which I raised about permitting adults to enter within the limits of the White Paper number, as often it is easier for adults to escape than for children to secure permission to leave?

Colonel Stanley: Perhaps the hon. Lady will have a word with me afterwards.

MESSAGE FROM THE LORDS.

That they have agreed to—

Consolidated Fund (Appropriation) (No. 2) Bill.

Income Tax (Employments) Bill.

Prolongation of Parliament Bill.

Workmen's Compensation (Temporary Increases) Bill.

Parliament (Elections and Meeting) Bill, without Amendment.

Amendment to—

Price Control (Regulation of Disposal of Stocks) Bill [Lords], without Amendment.

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE

Ordered,
That, nothwithstanding the practice of the House, the Consolidated Fund (Appropriation) (No. 2) Bill may be considered in Committee immediately after the Bill has been read a second time."—[Mr. Attlee.]

Mr. Robertson: On a point of Order. May I ask for your guidance, Mr. Speaker? I wish to know why no statement was made yesterday by the Minister in charge of the Fish Sales (Charges) Order, in view of the known opposition to it, and also in view of the much more important fact that large increases in the cost of fish were authorised by that Order and that those increases must be borne by the consumers.

Mr. Speaker: I am afraid there is no point of Order here. It was open to any hon. Member who was present yesterday to raise those questions on the Order. The hon. Member did not ask those questions then, and he cannot raise the matter now.

Mr. Gallacher: Could we not have a statement from some Minister on why the Whips did not arrange for the business to be carried on yesterday, in view of the fact that we are always being told that there is no time for discussing matters which many private Members wish to discuss? We should have a guarantee that we are not going to be "done in" in the same manner to-day.

Mr. Speaker: That also is not a point of Order. If hon. Members had chosen yesterday to raise any of these matters, the discussion would have continued, and the fault therefore lies with hon. Members themselves.

SECRET SESSION

The Deputy Prime Minister (Mr. Attlee): I informed the House yesterday that if possible on the Third Sitting Day there would be a Government statement and a Debate to follow if the House so desired. I am glad to inform the House that the Foreign Secretary has returned safely and will make a statement in the House on the Third Sitting Day. I desire now to make a statement on Business, in Secret Session, and therefore, Mr. Speaker, I espy Strangers.

Whereupon. Mr. SPEAKER, pursuant to Standing Order No. 89, put the Question, "That Strangers be ordered to withdraw."

Question agreed to.

Strangers withdrew accordingly.

The House subsequently resumed in Public Session.

Orders of the Day — CONSOLIDATED FUND (APPRO- PRIATION) (No. 2) BILL

Read a Second time, and committed to a Committee of the Whole House; immediately considered in Committee; reported, without Amendment.

Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Bill be now read the Third time."

Earl Winterton: I think it desirable that some Member of the House, perhaps some old Member like myself, should make it clear that this Bill has gone through all its stages without dicussion for special reasons and that it does not form a precedent for the future.

Question put, and agreed to.

Bill read the Third time, and passed.

Orders of the Day — PURCHASE TAX (ALTERATION OF RATES) (COTTON COUNTERPANES)

Resolved,
That the Purchase Tax (Alteration of Rates) (No. 2) Order, 1943, dated 16th October, 5943, made by the Treasury under Section 20 of the Finance (No. 2) Act, 1940, a copy of which was presented to this House on 26th October, be approved".—[Captain Waterhouse.]

TUBERCULOSIS

Motion made, and Question proposed, "That this House do now adjourn."—[Mr. James Stuart.]

Mr. Ammon: I can think of no stronger indiotment of our social and economic system than that after all these years we still have to discuss as a matter of primary importance the incidence of tuberculosis among our people. Looking back as far as one can, this has been a perennial subject in this


House, and my mind goes back to the days, a great many years ago, that I spent in the Post Office service, where tuberculosis was then considered a scourge to such an extent that people used to look round their offices and almost be able to tell who was going to die next from it. During the course of years due to improvements in conditions, better office accommodation and instruction how to deal with the complaint and the actions of the staff, who were among the first to combine in order to build sanatoria, the disease has gradually been eliminated from the Service, but we are now in the position, in 1943, that it is possible for the Ministry of Health to say that tuberculosis is still the chief destroyer, except in war, of human life in its prime. I submit that that opens up a very grave condition of affairs, more particularly as there has been a considerable increase in the incidence of tuberculosis from 1938 up to the present time, although there was a slight drop between 1941 and 1942.
The tragedy is all the worse because this position is largely remediable. It would be possible in a properly ordered society to stamp out this tragedy because it arises largely from lack of nutrition, over-fatigue, excessive drinking, poor ventilation and lack of exercise—all things that are in the realm of handling in a properly organised society. Looking at the complaint itself, I suppose it would be fair to say that the soil of it is the body and that the seed are the bacilli. It is necessary, therefore, to make the soil as infertile as possible, that is, to build up bodily resistance. It is true that much can be done by training of conduct and habits to prevent the spread and growth of this disease, but it does require a little more than that, and that is why some of us are very anxious that there should be some definite indication as to post-war planning, with regard both to housing and dealing with our medical services and also seeing that, so far as is possible, the men return from the front to conditions which will not be conducive to the growth of this terrible disease. Still more is this necessary because there is no doubt men will come back in many ways more susceptible to the disease, and that susceptibility will be increased if provisions are not made to deal with the matter as quickly as possible. So the Debate takes

on a little more urgency than it has done on previous occasions, because we have to face the very serious facts that exist with regard to the health of our population. Before the war it was a matter of concern that we were an ageing population, that in a few years a very large proportion, if not the majority, of us will be drawing pensions. How far will that be accentuated, following the loss of the best of our young people in the war? It is essential that we should give very earnest attention to grappling with this disease, which is still the most fatal to our race, apart from war. There must be an early searching-out of causes which are likely to develop active T.B., and steps have to be taken soon to do so and to prevent the soil, which is the human body, becoming a means of carrying and disseminating this evil complaint.
From some statistics I saw the other day, I understand that we have made a start with mass radiography, but that the number of sets is inadequate, and there is difficulty in obtaining the necessary skilled staff. In those conditions, I beg the Ministry that there will be no attempt to treat this matter in a spirit of fatalism, but that there will be an earnest effort to deal with it, even if it costs money, inconvenience and a certain amount of risk. In the long run the risk and the expenditure can be no greater than they will be if the disease is allowed to get out of hand. One of the things that can be done in the use of radiography is to take the sets to the factories instead of the managements sending workers to a more or less distant point. The objection will be at once raised that there are two difficulties, one of which is expense and the other the obtaining of the necessary expert staff. So far as the first is concerned, I think there is no reason in present conditions for expense to be allowed for one moment to stand in the way of improving the health of the community, even if it means saving the life of only one man or woman. Everything must be done to bring into service all the latest scientific developments and everything that research can give us, in order to undo all that may have grown up during these years of war. We have cause to be grateful for those who have had the ordering of our food supplies and have kept them on lines where we have had the maximum of nutritional advantage, during times of real difficulty.
The other point follows from what I have said. It is useless to discover early cases and to put the people off work only for them to stop at home waiting for beds. That will not help the situation a bit but will add considerably to the anxiety of the patients and of those who have the care of them and are near and dear to them. From many inquiries I have made I understand that more beds could be occupied at once if there were the necessary nursing and domestic staffs. I speak on this matter with a certain amount of knowledge in regard to a large municipality. One of the things which the Ministries of Health and Labour must do is to see that adequate staff is supplied to deal with this problem as and when it arises.
That brings me to two other points in dealing with this problem as a matter of national urgency, as it undoubtedly is. There is the difficulty of chronic cases which are discovered too late to be cured. Something can be done by care and training in habits that will help to restrict the infection. I hope as time goes on that one will not allow unreasoning sentimentalism to prevent the separation of chronic cases from the rest of the community. In that connection one can strongly commend such enterprises as Papworth, Preston Hall, Spcro and similar workshops, and steps should be taken to increase them. These patients are capable of doing work and, with proper care and conditions, can live a considerable number of years.
I pass to my final point, which concerns allowances. The time has come when we have to draw the line between what we call recoverable cases and cases that will not recover, but allowances should be provided for all. It is a matter of concern to the whole community that the health and economic conditions of these patients should be well preserved, because the complaint is bound up with the health of the community. It is very pathetic to have to tell a man in a sanatorium that he cannot have an allowance because he is not likely to recover, when he is alongside another man who is getting an allowance. It has the inevitable result that the first man is referred to public assistance, which causes depression in the sufferer and has a psychological effect retarding recovery considerably. Expense is a minor consideration. What really matters is proper treatment for the recovery of the patient and building up the health of the community. This can be done, and

will give us a return pressed down and running over.
Faced as we are with a certain depletion of the best manhood and womanhood of the nation, arising directly out of the war and the fact that in postwar years we shall have a call to deal, as far as we can, with those who will return giving them such accommodation and conditions as to enable them to put up the biggest possible resistance to the ravages of this or any other complaint, it is essential to bear in mind that these measures are bound up with the whole of our post-war development. It is essential that we should get a clear statement on questions of housing, prospects of employment, medical health and national service. I hope that in the discussion which follows hon. Members will bring home to the Ministry the need of not accepting with complacency the present situation, hoping that somehow, somewhere and somewhen these things will right themselves. They will not right themselves except by a rigorous campaign against the disease. The mere fact of the existence of the disease is the strongest condemnation of our present economic and social system. The complaint is absolutely within the power of the community to remedy, but it is still the greatest potential danger in our midst to human life.

Mr. Clement Davies: I am glad that the hon. Member has given us an opportunity to discuss this question. It has always seemed to me that the subject divides itself into three parts: prevention, precautions and treatment. With regard to prevention, I am glad that the hon. Member has called attention to some of the factors which are the main causes in the spread of this disease. It is extraordinary that even now our laws are, in the main, passed for the protection of property and not for the protection of persons. The whole strength of the law is brought to bear in any shape or form if the least bit of property is interfered with, but the full strength of the law is not brought to bear when personal suffering occurs which may be due to sheer neglect on the part of some member of die community or, indeed, of the community as a whole.
I was called upon in 1937 to inquire into this subject throughout my country, which unfortunately holds a very bad record in the matter. One of the most startling


things is that at the head of the list—that is, the black list of tuberculosis—are three of the counties which one would rave thought would be the healthiest in the land, Anglesey, Carnarvon and Pembroke. Those three counties have not only the sea about them but perfect scenery, hills and so on; nevertheless year after year they show the worst tuberculosis record. One asks, To what is this due? There is this germ from which all of us may suffer but which no one has found, but which is met with everywhere. Why is it that, in some places, it can attack with such fatal effects? Apparently it is due to malnutrition, insufficient food, bad housing, bad conditions in school, bad conditions in factories and in mines, and the hon. Member has quite rightly urged 'that if these are the main factors they are matters which we can tackle. Quite rightly he says, What do we propose to do in our postwar policy to tackle this question?
May I mention to the House now a few matters upon which I have to report? With regard to housing, after the last war opportunity was given to local authorities, but very few opportunities have been taken. They were given power to build. What did I find? There were still thousands of houses in which people lived which were unfit for human habitation, where not only had the women to contend day by day with dampness, earth floors and so on, and where children were born and brought up, where the tuberculosis patient lingered on month after month, and where he died, and where nevertheless families went on living. Houses were pointed out to me which were known as death houses, where healthy families had come in one by one only to be wiped out by this dread disease. I shall never forget one house to which I was told five young men had brought their brides, five young families had been born there, five families had been completely wiped out, and still that house existed. That is to be found everywhere. Surely we can tackle that and tackle it nationally with greater power being exercised than has been exercised by the Ministry. I found, unfortunately, that so many local authorities had failed in their duty. Why? Because the penny rate loomed larger in their minds than the health of the people, and no steps had been taken by the Ministry of Health to correct that. Take

my own county. A penny rate produces for the whole county only £630. There are eleven councils, including six so-called urban councils, although the biggest town is under 5,000, and four rural councils. Far away the wealthiest is a rural district council with 19 parishes. Thanks to the fact that the Liverpool Corporation pay such a handsome part of the rate, their penny rate amounts to £290 out of that £630. What has been the result? They have built between the two wars fewer than one dozen houses for the 19 parishes. Not a word of protest from the Ministry. I want them to take in the future a much more active rôle. Then there are the conditions in the factories, the mines, and the quarries. I only wish that Members could realise the conditions under which slate is quarried in the Blaenau Ffestiniog district, where there is so little air where the man is working down in the bowels of the rock that there is not sufficient to keep a candle alight standing upright; it has to be laid on its side, and you cannot see the man when he is two yards away because of the dust. Again, those are conditions which we can rectify. Some steps have been taken since I reported on that in 1938.
In the case of schools, again I blame the central authorities. In 1927 a report was called for by the Board of Education with regard to the schools in Wales, and I think—I am now speaking from memory on matters which were brought before me five or six years ago—that there were something like 187 schools blacklisted by the Board of Education as being an actual danger to the health of the little children attending. If the parents knew that and kept their children at home, they were liable to be brought up before the magistrates and prosecuted for not sending their children to a school which the Board knew was a danger to the health of the children. I come along ten years later and find the same condition of things, practically unchanged. Letters have passed between the Board of Education and the local education authorities with three months elapsing between a letter and a reply. These have been the usual things:
I desire to draw your attention to such and such a school …
and
I am in receipt of your letter and will lay it before my authority when it meets.


and meanwhile the children were still going to a school which in the knowledge of the authorities was a danger to their health. Those are conditions which we can and must see that they cease to exist at the earliest possible moment.
Then, on the question of feeding, it is another terrible thought that it required a war for us to appreciate the necessity for feeding schoolchildren at midday. Some of us were campaigning for that long before the war and were not being listened to. The cost again loomed in their minds, the penny rate once more, the removal of responsibility from the shoulders of the parents. In the meantime the child was suffering. What is the cost? I remember so well being present at a march past of these little children. There is a wonderful movement in Wales which in my opinion is far finer than the Boy Scout and Girl Guide movements. We know it as the "Urdd Gobaith Cymru," where the little mites are brought together, and every year they assemble in what I suppose Boy Scouts would call a jamboree, but it is a far finer intellectual movement which we have for our children. On the occasion to which I am referring the retiring President was the right hon. Member for Carnarvon Boroughs (Mr. Lloyd George). The incoming President was myself. We were standing together watching these children go by, and I have never forgotten his turning to me as the sturdy little children came on, carrying their flags and marching like an army. He said, "Country children." I replied, "No, sir, the Rhondda." He said, "Impossible." I replied, "Yes, sir, warm meals midday." Another little lot came up looking weak and puny. I said, "Country children, sir." He said, "Why?" I replied, "No food from early morning breakfast until they get back after walking across the fields."
As well as feeding for the children there should be clinics. I think there should not only be a kitchen and a place where the children have their meals together, but there ought to be attached to each school a little clinic. Another great advantage the war has taught us is the necessity for these little clinics attached to every factory. Already they are to be found here, there and everywhere. Why not have one in the schools? Little children fall and meet with accidents. The mere fact

that they have to attend such a clinic will itself assist them in after life.
All these are on the preventive side. Now for the precautionary side. I am very glad there is a movement for mass radiology. What we want, of course, is to find the patients at the early stages. Unfortunately what so often happens is that they do not come into the hands of the doctor until it is almost too late. I therefore want every effort made to see that there is made available in every district a method of examination so that they can be tested. You have also to bear in mind that you have to proceed very carefully. There is a shyness; people are afraid of the verdict. Therefore they should be encouraged to go and should be told, "Do not worry about the verdict. If by chance you have got it, do not worry; there are tens of thousands who have it slightly, and they can still go on. Go in, find out what is the matter, and we can cure you."
Finally, there is then the curative side. There is nothing quite so heartbreaking as the case where the patient has now been told, "You are suffering from this dread disease of tuberculosis. The best treatment that can be given to you cannot be given at home, and we are making arrangements for you to go to a sanatorium." Well, it is a big wrench, but at last the patient consents to go, and then when he has summoned up his will to go and his family are prepared that he should go there comes the news, "There is no bed ready for you, and you will have to wait." He has been told that the cure is there, but not at home, but that he cannot be taken because there are not sufficient beds. There is a waiting list in Wales, and there has been a waiting list year after year after year. Sometimes it gets a little less, sometimes it increases. There ought to be always vacant beds ready to take in the patient at any time. That means more sanatoria, more beds, more staff. I am glad the hon. Lady nods her head in regard to this matter.
How are you going to get more staff? May I beg the Ministry of Health to make the conditions more attractive for the staff? I should imagine that there is a world of difference between the nurse in a general hospital where the patient is there for a short while, where her best attention is required for a little while, where she sees an improvement and she then attends


to someone else, and a nurse who day after day is in attendance on these poor people, sometimes seeing them instead of improving going slowly down. What are the conditions under which she works? I hope there has been an improvement since I saw them in 1937 and 1938. In no single instance did I find real attraction in the way of accommodation for the nurses, what I might call perfect surroundings. In so many institutions they were provided with dormitories for six, or eight, or ten. I know the female sex well enough to know that there are moments when a woman likes to be alone by herself in a place where she can throw herself on her bed and sob for ten minutes, go to sleep and then be all right again. She cannot do that if there are six or eight people looking on. That can be improved, but there are other things which are thoroughly bad. One wants better treatment for the staff, better accommodation for them, and a more attractive life. How many instances do we know of men leaving the sanatorium because their families were getting less money than they would if these men were at home? A little improvement in this position was announced a few weeks ago, but not enough. We have to say to the man, "Here is an opportunity for you to become a healthy member of the community. We will take care of you in this sanatorium. While you are there we will also take care that you do not have any mental worry, by keeping your family as well as we can. Come, health is in front of you! there is a new life for you." That I should like to see the policy of His Majesty's Government.

Sir Henry Morris-Jones: We are indebted to the hon. Member for North Camberwell (Mr. Ammon) for raising this subject. We have been much moved by the speech of my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Montgomery (Mr. C. Davies). We in Wales are very greatly indebted to him for a valuable report which he published, after a careful inquiry, some years ago. I have never embarked, and I do not intend to embark, upon a technical discussion of any subject in this House. This is not the place for it. But I might mention that there is a very great difference between tuberculosis now and what it was when I knew it in general practice 30 years ago.
It was then the terror of families. Now it has become an ailment which is within reasonable measure of being eliminated. But I agree with the hon. Member for North Camberwell that it is a blot upon this great country that we have not done more to eliminate this dread scourge. We ought to concentrate upon the main problem of housing. My right hon. Friend the Minister of Health is doing what he can, under very great difficulties. It is the custom in these days to look upon Russia as being par excellence everything that is good. I must say that when I read the news service which we get from Russia I cannot look at the figures there without admiration. Already in this war they have built 176,000 houses in the destroyed areas of Stalingrad and elsewhere. That is an example which we might follow. Materials should be given priority over anything, after the immediate war necessities of the moment.
Neither of the two hon. Gentlemen touched on what is probably one of the chief causes. I think that the black-out has aggravated tuberculosis. People in this country for the next three months will be sitting in rooms, in factories, in hotels, in clubs, in all the buildings of these islands, from five o'clock in the afternoon until eight o'clock in the morning, without any fresh air penetrating to them. I have seen a system by which ventilation is achieved in spite of the black-out, but in the greater proportion of buildings in this country there is no ventilation of any kind during the black-out. This is not the time to discuss whether we could have a reconsideration of the whole question of the black-out, but I think that the authorities should ameliorate it at the earliest possible moment when they consider themselves in a position to do so. I would endorse what my hon. and learned Friend said about the conditions of staffs in hospitals and sanatoria. The nursing service in this country has as high a standard as any nursing service in the world in regard to ability and devotion, but the conditions of nurses and other hospital staffs are not as good as those in many other countries. In New Zealand they have excellent amenities, both physical and mental.

Dr. Edith Summerskill: New Zealand has a Labour Government.

Sir H. Morris-Jones: In Sweden and Norway the system of State supervision and care of hospitals and nursing far exceeds that in this country. The conditions of service, the salaries and pensions and the amenities provided are far better than is the case here. I appeal to my right hon. Friend the Minister of Health and to those associated with him to put this matter in the first category of social improvement. In that way the staff position will be improved. I am confident that in a few years tuberculosis in this country will have become one of the diseases of the past, like smallpox and the other epidemics which used to haunt us in the old time.

Dr. Edith Summerskill: It is very regrettable that an important Debate which concerns thousands of suffering people in this country should have been initiated at such short notice. A number of Members are very interested in this matter. My hon. Friend the Member for South Tottenham (Mr. Messer) is chairman of a large hospital, and the hon. Member for Stone (Sir J. Lamb) is chairman of a hospital. I know that both were very anxious to take part in such a Debate as this. It was a great surprise when I came to the House to-day to hear that this Debate was to be held at such short notice. Even those of us who are very familiar with the subject, who spend our lives in great part tending sick people, would have liked notice. I should have liked to bring certain documents to the House. I have been unable even to obtain a list of the new allowances. I want to register my protest against the Debate being conducted in this way.

Mr. Speaker: I hope the hon. Lady is not suggesting that I was wrong in selecting the subject.

Dr. Summerskill: No, Sir, I am not for one moment criticising you. But unless one makes a protest Debates are initiated in this haphazard fashion. We are always being told that Parliamentary time is very limited. There are many things which I should like to raise, and I hope to have the opportunity of doing so on the Adjournment next Session. I am surprised that when Parliamentary time is so limited we do not use it to the best advantage. Had we had notice, these benches would have been better tenanted.
I was very glad to hear the hon. Member for Denbigh (Sir H. Morris Jones), a professional colleague of mine, illustrate his remarks by referring to progress in the Soviet Union and in New Zealand. I endorse everything he has said. The other Members who have spoken have dealt with the general aspect of tuberculosis. I want to address myself simply to the new scheme of allowances. The Ministry of Health, out of its experience, knows that a tubercular patient is reluctant to have treatment in a sanatorium, because he knows that during his stay there he will be losing his wages, and his family will be suffering. There is always a desire to leave the sanatorium before the patient is cured, and before it is advisable for him to return home. The Ministry felt, quite rightly, that a scheme of allowances should be introduced to subsidise the workman entering into a sanatorium, and to free him from anxiety. I feel that that reform should have been introduced many years ago. It is deplorable that so many patients should return home to infect their families, who in turn have to be found accommodation in sanatoria. This scheme was introduced, but to our surprise and horror—horror is not an over-statement—we discovered that these allowances were to be given only to those patients who were considered curable and that those patients who were suffering from chronic tuberculosis, whom the experts thought were hopeless, were to be denied these allowances.
I cannot understand how the Minister of Health, who makes on many occasions such noble professions in his desire to help the suffering, should have been persuaded to allow such inhuman and callous treatment to be meted out to a section of the community who are deserving of the greatest pity and sympathy. I want to remind the House what this means. If a patient is told that he is not to receive an allowance, he interprets the withholding of the allowance as a pronouncement of the death sentence. I have a number of letters on this subject, and the Minister of Health must have been deluged with letters, judging by the number I have received as a result of putting down certain Questions in this House, but one that I read last night was poignant. It was written by the parents of a boy of 22, who informed me that they had been told that this youth was not to receive the


allowance, and they were withholding that information from the patient because they could not bear to see the despair of this boy of 22 if he knew that his case was hopeless and incurable. I want Members of the House to realise what a dark future must yawn in front of these patients when they are told that they are not to have an allowance. As a doctor, I find it very difficult to understand the approach of these officials who must have drawn up this scheme. It is absolutely contrary to the principles and practice of the medical profession. What would be the effect if we adopted the same principle in our hospitals and told our almoners in the hospitals that they must separate the curables from the incurables as that tragic procession of out-patients comes into the hospitals? Suppose they were to be examined, and the almoner was to tell them, "We cannot manage or afford treatment here. The hospital is too poor to finance you, because you are regarded as incurable, chronic, hopeless. Would you mind leaving by that door?" To other patients they would say, "The doctors say there is a chance for you. We think we can find enough money for you. You can go through that door and have an operation and a bed in this hospital, because there is hope for you." If we applied the principle which is expressed in this scheme to our hospitals, that would be exactly the treatment we would mete out to our patients to-day. How would the world regard us? They would regard us as savages and as barbarians if we treated our sick and helpless in this way. It is opposed to all that is fine and noble in the treatment of the sick and needy.
I have often heard the Minister of Health quoting the Scriptures. I wonder whether he has ever heard of the parable of the good Samaritan? How can he justify the passing by of the sick and helpless, leaving them to die? I wonder also whether he has ever seen, what so many of us who are in the medical profession have seen, the life led by the sufferer from tuberculosis who is not in hospital. I have been in those little back rooms in London where a, working mother has been told that her grown-up child needs fresh air, plenty of food and a room to itself. I have been in those little back rooms, with the windows wide open and with as little furniture as necessary,

stripped of all but the bare necessities. I have myself stood there shivering and have talked to the poor, pathetic patient in bed, lying there in misery. These patients are often deprived of visitors, because unfortunately, the sufferer from tuberculosis in our midst is often regarded by the healthy as untouchable. There are these individuals lying in little back rooms—and I say little back rooms because generally the family have to give up a small room because they cannot spare a large one—throughout the country. Now, these people, who are without companionship, without visitors and without the normal creature comforts which we enjoy, have been given a companion by the Minister of Health—black despair. I call upon the Government to reconsider this inhuman Regulation which treats the patients so savagely.
I want to say a few words about the amounts of the allowances. Everybody here knows—and it is not denied—that these allowances are inadequate. I sat in this House last week and heard it said that most of the allowances approximated to the public assistance rates, and my hon. Friend the Member for South Tottenham (Mr. Messer), who is chairman of a hospital committee, said that in many areas the allowances were less than the public assistance rates. When I raised this matter before, the Minister reminded me that there were such things as discretionary allowances. Most of us are familiar with the working of the discretionary allowances. It means nothing to the sufferers. They want to know how much they will get if they go into a sanatorium. It is no good saying that there may be a kind of means test and that they may be given a certain amount. They want to know what their financial position is likely to be, otherwise they will not be able to make the arrangements necessary for a long stay, not one of a few weeks but of six months, a year or two years in a sanatorium.
I was discussing this a fortnight ago with a specialist who is in charge of a chest clinic in the East of London and he told me that in his opinion, looking at the matter objectively, this scheme would have no appreciable effect and would not reduce the incidence of tuberculosis in this country. I only want to mention one allowance which I consider so inadequate and ludicrous that it is difficult to believe


that the Government could have given the particular section of the community that will be given this allowance any consideration at all. I refer to the housewives' allowance. According to the scheme, if a housewife develops tuberculosis, the husband is to be given 10s, a week during her absence in the sanatorium. Every Member in this House knows how difficult if is to get domestic help of any kind. Could any hon. Member find a woman to go into a working class house to do all the cooking, scrubbing, mending and to care for the children for 10s. a week? It is impossible for that to be done, and if I am told that there is to be given a supplementary allowance I can only say that, in order to find proper domestic help in these days for a household where it is necessary for the woman to care for the whole of the household, it will be necessary to give a larger and more generous allowance. Otherwise, what will happen? The housewife, of course, will refuse to go away. She will stay on. She may infect her children, and if she is at last persuaded to go away, she will be worried and anxious all the time she is in the sanatorium, wondering whether her children are being properly cared for.
I do ask the Minister to reconsider these scales. I want more adequate allowances, and also the allowance to be given to every tubercular patient irrespective of the stage of the disease in order to give these unfortunate people a chance to regain their health and strength.

Colonel Sir A. Lambert Ward: It was not originally my intention to intervene in this Debate, and I would not have done so had it not been for the emphasis which practically all previous speakers have made, that the incidence of this terrible disease is entirely due to bad economic and social conditions, malnutrition, bad housing and the like. They may be right, but if so, how do they account for the cases which occur in houses where the conditions are ideal and where the meaning of the word "malnutrition" is not even known because conditions are ideal in every respect? During the course of my life five cases have come intimately to my notice each of which terminated fatally and in not one of these cases did poverty enter in the slightest degree. The housing in each case was luxurious and

food in unlimited quantities was at disposal. At the same time, the patients died. It may be said that is ancient history. It is not. In one case it happened quite recently. In the house where the patient lived the conditions were ideal, food was always forthcoming in unlimited quantities and the patient always used to exercise in the open-air, but the result was the same. If, as previous speakers have said, this is entirely due to poverty, how do they account for cases like that?
We are also told by the medical profession in this House that if this disease is taken in time it can always be cured. I can only conclude that they mean that traatment should start before it can be detected by the ordinary medical practitioner or even by the specialist. In the cases that I have in mind not only were the ordinary medical practitioners called in, but specialists of the most expensive kind were called in during the comparatively early stages of the disease. There is one hope, in my opinion. One hears a good deal of talk in these days about mass radiology, and I understand that the Ministry of Health has completed arrangements for the manufacture of a certain number of sets of the necessary apparatus. I believe that up to a few weeks ago 17 of these sets had been issued, but what are 17 among a population of 42,000,000 or 43,000,000 people? When I made application for a set to be issued to the City which I represent—the City of Hull—I was told that there were not sufficient and that the 17 sets which were ready were to be issued to other places. Surely it is time that every city of any size had facilities for mass radiology. I believe that it is only by such means that one can hope to tackle this disease in the stages which are sufficiently early to allow a recovery to be made. I am not an authority on this subject, and it is not my intention to speak for much longer, but I beg the Ministry of Health to do more than they are apparently doing at the present time with regard to the provision of sets of this apparatus. From the experience one has had up to the present time and the hopelessness of expecting an ordinary medical practitioner to diagnose this disease in time for it to be cured, an appreciable improvement can be made in the treatment of this terrible disease only by the issue of further sets of apparatus.

Mr. McNeil: It is not my purpose to join with the opening thesis of the hon. and gallant Member for North-West Hull (Sir A. Lambert Ward). I think it is beyond dispute nowadays that this disease varies in its incidence directly with poverty. My hon. Friend the Member for North Camberwell (Mr. Ammon) and my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Montgomery (Mr. C. Davies) did a service to the House when they repeated what cannot be too often said, that death can be bought off, at any rate so far as this disease is concerned. I am quite certain that if the public of this country had firmly fixed in their minds the figures provided by experts, they would not allow any Government to remain in power which did not address itself to the basic problem of the prevention and cure of this disease. The Ministry of Health should say to the Treasury, "This is our business. We will tell you what the cost is afterwards, because we know that whatever it is in pounds, shillings and pence it will be far less than the cost in misery and squalor not only now but in future years."
I want particularly to refer to what my hon. Friend the Member for West Fulham (Dr. Summerskill) said., namely, the extraordinary restriction on this scheme of maintenance and treatment allowances. I want to say to the Government spokesman who will reply to the Debate that the Ministry of Health and the Department of Health for Scotland that they have deliberately gone out of their way to mislead the public on this issue. The Department of Health for Scotland have issued what they call a model leaflet which they suggest should, in turn, be issued to the public. The first paragraph of this leaflet says:
In order to help men and women who need treatment for pulmonary tuberculosis but for whom treatment will mean an interruption of earnings and other income, the Government make special allowances.
As my hon. Friend the Member for West Fulham has pointed out, this, to say the least, is a gross inaccuracy. In the circular which the Department of Health sent out to local authorities they tell a rather different story. My hon. Friend said the allowances were not made available to people who were incurable. The picture is much worse than that. Here is an extract from paragraph 27 of the official

circular in which the local authorities are warned:
… it is clear that the purpose of the allowance (as described above) cannot be met where treatment cannot do more than alleviate a chronic condition.
That seems to me to say that not only is the incurable person to be pushed aside but that the person whose condition might be alleviated by treatment is also excluded from the scheme. Moreover, as my hon. Friend quite clearly showed, a burden is thrown upon the local authority and upon the medical officer of the local authority, which is not only unprofessionable and intolerable but, I suggest, is not an administrative possibility. The medical officer is to say that certain people shall qualify and others shall not. The second group of patients are not given details of this circular. They are just told that they do not qualify. If relatives or even the patient presses for a reason why they do not qualify the doctor is left with this most unprofessional task of saying, "You do not qualify because in my opinion I cannot return you to work within a definable period." One of the greatest medical officers in this country, a man whose reputation is of the highest, said to me that he was being asked for the first time in 40 years of public life to hand out death certificates to some of his patients. That is inhuman and it is a harsh administrative principle for which I cannot find any parallel except in that of the Poor Law in the 16th century.
My hon. Friend quite properly said that the Minister of Health enjoys a reputation as a good man of the church. My right hon. Friend the Member for Stirling and Falkirk (Mr. Westwood), who is now on the Government Front Bench, enjoys an equally good reputation outside and inside our party. It is not peculiarly germane to our discussion, but I should like to ask either of them to justify this attitude in terms of the Christian doctrine. They may say that it is not their job so to justify it but to justify it as an administrative scheme. When I questioned the right hon. Gentleman previously on the subject he sought to escape by saying that he had acted upon the findings of the Medical Research Committee, which was set up to inquire into this matter last autumn. But that is not sufficient; it is never sufficient to throw an authority across the Table of this House. That is


no escape or defence. If a Minister intends to cite an authority to this House, then he must explain why the authority should be accepted. In this case examination of the authority will not provide an escape. As my hon. Friend the Member for North Camberwell pointed out, this same report provided for the treatment and employment of chronic pulmonary tuberculosis cases which are now excluded from the scheme. One other possible reply is that the primary purpose of the scheme is to restrict the spread of infection. I should be inclined to agree that that would be an excellent basis. But my right hon. Friend cannot believe that that is happening under this scheme.
Life my hon. Friend the Member for West Fulham, I have had many letters. I do not mean to quote them all to the House, but here is one from a patient in a sanatorium. I will not reveal the names but I do not mind letting my right hon. Friend see the letter. The patient says:
Just before I was discharged another patient left of his own accord although he was obviously far from well. I asked his reason and was informed that he had been told he was a chronic case and was not eligible for maintenance grant. Until then he had held out some hope of recovering sufficiently to be able to resume more or less normal life but when told he was incurable he immediately said, "Then I shall die at home.
That is sad enough, but let us look at the administrative importance of the question. The letter goes on:
He arranged to leave the sanatorium a day or two later despite the fact that he has a family of eight youngsters among whom he will now be in an excellent position to disseminate the germs of tuberculosis …
My hon. Friend the Member for Hamilton (Mr. Fraser) told me that in his Division a man had said to him, "I am not going to be left to die and rot in an institution, uncared for." He probably inferred—although he had no right to do so—that if the State were not prepared to make to him and to an acute case in the next bed similar allowances, he would not be prepared to have the full professional service made available to the other acute case. That man also went home. In my own Division yesterday an officer told me of a boy of 16 whom the medical officer was unable to include within the scheme and who had to be considered as a chronic case. Of course, the boy's mother took him home. I am not arguing on sentimental grounds; I am arguing that if the aim

of this scheme is to prevent the spread of this infection it will fail by excluding the chronic pulmonary cases. The chronic type of case goes home and goes to work. My right hon. Friend, who is an authority on this Committee's report, knows that. They go to work where, of course, they infect their fellow workmen.
I would also like to say, not so strongly although I think I am on fairly firm ground, that the Government make a similar mistake when they exclude the non-pulmonary cases. I have a letter from an authority on non-pulmonary tubercular diseases who says:
The reply I should make is that if the non-pulmonary case in the non-productive group does not get early enough treatment he stands a fair chance of becoming a pulmonary case.
I had one example thrust on my attention concerning a bus driver, suffering from a hip condition, who was ruled outside the scheme. His general condition deteriorated until he is now, unfortunately, within the scheme. Whether he will remain within the scheme and not develop as a chronic case is at this stage a matter of medical guesswork. One other defence may be made, that this scheme is an experiment. I should think that the experiment has had by now a fair chance of being examined. It has been running for eight months, which the House may be surprised to learn. One of my right hon. Friend's greatest difficulties, with which I very much sympathise, is of course the limitation of the number of beds available, but hope that is not going to be used as an excuse—it is not a reason—for this restriction of the scheme because, even if it is true that we cannot find beds for these chronic cases, I am arguing—though I do not need to because it is axiomatic—that it would be much better to provide funds to permit these chronic cases to stay at home. They will not be non-infective there. They may infect the children. But still they will be in contact with a lesser potential area for infection than if they are forced out to work by not being provided with adequate funds. The hon. Lady dealt with the inadequacy of the scales. Let me corroborate what she said. For certain categories in Glasgow the public assistance scales are higher than those which the Government have laid down. I hope that my hon. Friend the Member for Gorbals (Mr. Buchanan) may deal with this aspect of the scheme be-


cause on scales and insurance there is no greater authority on this side of the House. I am distressed and a bit disturbed about this scheme, and I may be thought to be prejudiced, so let me read part of a letter from that most sober journal, "The Scotsman," in which the writer discusses the scheme and says:
This extract may be interpreted as meaning that it is unjustifiable to spend money on people whose disease is incurable. Viewed in this light, the scheme appears as a piece of cold blooded expediency designed not for the relief of mental or bodily sickness but purely as a measure towards alleviating the man power shortage. As such it is a disgrace to a so-called Christian country.
There is a loophole within the scheme for local authorities which I hope they will use. Paragraph 26 of the circular says:
If the authority are in doubt as to the application of this memorandum to individual cases in respect of which applications are received, the Department will be ready to advise and give a statement of the facts, but it is not contemplated that such reference should often be necessary.
I do not like the last phrase. I have tried to get figures from the Minister of Health and have so far failed. But I have some figures from the Scottish Office. They disclose that, out of every three cases making application, one has been refused. If the Department does not contemplate that local authorities will often have to refer cases to them, that is not a contemplation based on facts. It is a hope. I hope on the other hand that every local authority in the country, and every medical officer who is truly a medical officer will say, "It is no part of my job, it is not my duty, it is not a task for which I have ever been trained to be a finance clerk for the Treasury. My job, is to heal people and, if anyone wants to decide that this man or that woman is inside or outside the scheme, let them decide." I hope local authorities will make the scheme unworkable by referring every tuberculous applicant to the Ministry of Health for decision.

Mr. Cocks: I should like to say a word or two in support of my hon. Friend's appeal to the Government to remove from this scheme the limitation that these special allowances shall only be given to sufferers from tuberculosis who can be healed sufficiently to go back to work. I am very sorry, in view of the importance of the matter, that the Minister

of Health is not here himself. I do not know why he is not. With all respect to the Under-Secretary of State, he is really not an adequate substitute on this matter for the Boanerges of the platform, the pulpit and Parliament. My hon. Friend the Member for West Fulham (Dr. Summerskill) asked how it was that the Minister of Health could justify the fact that he ignored the parable of the good Samaritan and saw sick people and passed by on the other side. It is very simple to give an answer. He can say, "I am not a Samaritan, I am only a Siinonite—in other words, a mere camp follower of the Tory Party." As he is not here, why is there no representative of his Ministry? What about his, I am sure efficient but rather more obscure, Parliamentary Secretary? She was here only a few moments ago. Why have we not any representative of this great office present? I do not know whether it is an indication of the reconstruction of the Government which is now taking place and which has long been due.
I have here a circular issued by the Public Health Department of the Nottinghamshire County Council. It says:—
In order to help men and women who need treatment for pulmonary tuberculosis, but for whom treatment will mean an interruption of earnings or other income, the Government makes special allowances. The object of the allowances is to enable necessary treatment to be undertaken without feeling anxiety about the support of a family or the upkeep of a home.
Judging from that, it is not merely whether the case can be cured or not. It is only to meet cases of interruption of earnings. I have a case in my constituency of a girl of 18. For two years she has been ill with pulmonary tuberculosis. She was in a sanatorium for nine months and was discharged in December, 1942. The doctor said he could do no more for her. She is and will always be unfit for work. She was taken ill when 16, so she has not enough stamps on her card to qualify for unemployment benefit, and she gets nothing under the scheme, although she will never again be fit to earn money. I have a letter from a distinguished doctor, the county medical officer for Nottinghamshire. He says:
I have now personally looked into the record of this case carefully and regret to say that under the terms of memorandum 266D, the patient is ineligible to receive the allowance. She is in such a stage of the disease that treatment cannot do more than alleviate the chronic condition.


She is therefore not eligible under the scheme. He goes on:
This limitation in the terms of the Memorandum of course excludes a considerable proportion of tuberculous persons benefiting under the arrangement and imposes upon the officers concerned with its administration a duty which from a purely humanitarian point of view is very distasteful.
I think the Ministry should remove this limitation. The general impression is that these allowances are provided only if people can be patched up and made fit to work again. In other words, the scheme is based upon earning ability and profit-making rather than humanity. The Government are winning a great war through the sacrifices of millions of people, and a scheme like this is unworthy of such a Government and should be altered in the way my hon. Friend has suggested.

Mr. Sloan: These recurring Debates on tuberculosis do not often lead us very much further. I am old enough to remember that when consumption was diagnosed it was generally considered as a death sentence, and its victims were allowed to cough their lives away. They were offered very little hope indeed and were looked upon almost as suffering from some type of leprosy. We have certainly travelled some distance since then, although the attempts to get a grip of the disease and have it eradicated are not very widespread. It is alarming to know that it is still on the increase. Many reasons are given for this, but I think it requires no new investigation and no experimental or research work to understand what is the cause. I remember during the last war, when the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Carnarvon Boroughs (Mr. Lloyd George) was outlining the new world that was to come, he said that the causes of T.B. were very simple. They were bad housing, especially dampness, bad sanitation, under-feeding and over-work. I do not think the decade which has passed since then has fundamentally altered the causes of T.B. They are still there. I do not know why we should wonder at the fact that there has been an increase, or at least no diminution in this disease when we remember the 20 years of poverty and malnutrition that we have experienced in the interval. If malnutrition, under-nourishment, bad feeding were the causes of the disease then, these have been accentuated since, because there has been no

general improvment, at any rate up to the time of the outbreak of war.
As far as Scotland is concerned, the position of housing remains practically unaltered. It is true we have built a number of houses, but it is also true that the position is not very much improved. I believe that there is more overcrowding in Scotland to-day than there was at the commencement of the building, because for every house that we have built, we have demolished one and the position as regards overcrowding is better only to the extent that the people are living in houses of a better type. But the overcrowding remains and we have villages in Scotland, especially in the mining districts, where there is no water supply, where an open stinking drain is the only form of sanitation, and where the open "midden" is an eyesore. We find those disgraceful conditions prevailing 20 years after the time when we were promised "homes fit for heroes." How we are to eliminate this dreadful scourge without tackling the root cause, is one of the things which it is most difficult to understand.
The question of hospital accommodation has been widely discussed in this Debate, and I suggest that to proceed on the lines of the tuberculosis hospitals is the wrong way to set about dealing with this problem. Even to-day, with all the education that we have had in regard to this disease, people are very reluctant to go into what is termed a sanatorium. We have tried in some cases to change the name from "sanatorium" to "chest hospital" but that does not materially alter the position, because people are enlightened enough nowadays to know that when the chest is in danger, it is a question of the lungs. Our attempts, so far to provide hospital accommodation have been of a most inadequate description. Generally the hospitals are built in the most outlandish places, are most incommodious and are difficult for the relatives of the patients to visit.
Then we have started out on the lines that these people must be segregated. I think we must recognise that as entirely wrong. Hospital accommodation for tuberculosis patients should be part of our general hospital scheme. Accommodation for the treatment of the disease should be part of the general hospital set up in any district. There is just as much reluctance on the part of parents or other relatives, to


send members of their families to sanatoria as there would be to sending them to mental institutions simply because of the difficulties that have grown up in this respect. In Ayrshire we are attempting to deal with that problem by making the tuberculosis hospital part of the general hospital scheme. It is no wonder that people die in so-called sanatoria because if you go into them and look at them, it must strike you that there is nothing left for a person to do but to die—in such a place. Something ought to be done to brighten the lives of the patients and give them an incentive to live, but if they are shown a ten-year-old cinema picture now and again, we imagine we are providing adequately for the entertainment of these unfortunate people. I do suggest that in considering the question of hospital accommodation we should aim not at separating those who are under treatment for tuberculosis but at making such treatment part of the general hospital scheme.
The difficulty still remains of diagnosing this disease. From my experience and having spoken to doctors in these institutions I would say that the patients are generally far too late in arrival at the institution for treatment; that the disease has taken such a hold that the cure is more difficult than it might otherwise have been, and that, in many instances, the patient is beyond recovery. I should like to know what is the difficulty about instituting a system of mass radiography. The disease ought to be traced earlier; and surely there ought not to be any difficulty in providing the necessary apparatus for this purpose. I have seen patients who have been treated for almost every disease under the sun, who have been in various institutions for treatment and have been sent hither and thither until they completely collapsed. Then, when they were X-rayed, it has been found that they were being treated all the time for the wrong disease. Surely we have travelled sufficiently far to be able to find a way of preventing that sort of thing. The quicker the disease is diagnosed, the more easily it can be treated and the better the prospect of a cure.
When you speak to medical authorities on the matter they say, "If we could get them in time, we could eradicate tuberculosis in a generation in this country." If so, why all this difficulty about securing

the equipment necessary for this elementary process? I hope something drastic will be done on this question of mass radiography. Doctors tell me that when a case of tuberculosis is diagnosed, it is imperative that every member of that family should be tested. The discovery of one case is evidence that the infection is in the family somewhere. It does not grow of its own accord and when tuberculosis is detected in a family, every member of that family ought to come under observation, to ascertain whether there is a carrier among them. If we merely lift out the one person who has collapsed from the disease, and take that person away for treatment, and leave the family as it is, we are not doing what we ought to do to eradicate the disease. I wonder whether powers of compulsion could be used to bring every member of a suspected family under observation and investigation. If we are to get to the root of this problem and not merely to tinker with it it is along those lines that something must be done.
I have many objections to the scheme of payments which has been outlined. It is an inadequate scheme and is only playing with the question. We have now added to our investigators, a new official known as the "T.B. Investigator" who wanders round the districts. Why should all this be necessary? We are introducing a scheme for the benefit of sufferers from this disease. Why cannot we do it without all this investigation. If the doctors certify that a person is suffering from tuberculosis, we then require special proof that the person will recover sufficiently to be able to resume work. How is it to be known whether a patient will ever recover or not? Who is to say to a man or a woman in these circumstances "No, we cannot assist you because you are doomed to die. We will never be able to put you on your feet again; you will never recover and therefore you cannot receive the benefit of this scheme." I think that is the most shocking part of this proposal and one that ought to be removed from it altogether.
There are many other aspects of this question, but I am sure hon. Members of this House who pay particular attention to it, realise that if we are to eradicate this disease, we must first house our people properly. In my own county we need 10,000 houses before we can say that our people are living without fear


of contact with tuberculosis. We must remove the rotten insanitary conditions under which so many, of our people live. We must make sure that after this war we shall not have another 20 years of malnutrition and poverty as we had after the last. All your medical authorities can do will be insufficient, unless the standard of nutrition is maintained among the people and the question of dietary will need to receive a great deal more consideration than it has had up to the present. There is no denying the improvement that is taking place among our schoolchildren where they are being provided with meals at school. In most areas parents are perfectly willing to pay for these school meals, and the feeding of our children should become part and parcel of our educational system. It should be as necessary for them to have their meals in school as it is to have their mathematics. Where the children have been fed and where they have taken advantage of the milk that has been supplied there is an undoubted improvement in their health, and one that will be lasting if we are able to continue it and able to improve upon our very meagre attempts at the present time. I hope, therefore, that the question of these allowances will receive a great deal more consideration from the Department, that some of the anomalies will be removed, and that people will not be made to feel that there is some taint connected with them when they are asked about it. It is our bounden duty to do the best we can to eradicate from our midst the scourge of T.B.

Mr. Buchanan: I understand there is a desire to proceed to another subject of some importance. I have no wish to intervene too long in this Debate, but I do want to raise one or two points. I want to emphasise the points that other speakers have made. My first point is one which has been raised by at least three other speakers, the making against the medical profession one of the most unfair charges I have ever known. When this scheme was announced, the Secretary for Scotland almost captured my enthusiasm for the measure. I thought that for once Parliament had got something. I lived in a fool's paradise for two or three weeks. The object of the scheme is set out in the Memorandum. One of the difficulties that local authorities and the medical profession found in

grappling with this scourge was that people were faced with a terrible financial position when they went to receive treatment. The financial handicap was so great that people would not be treated. When this Paper was issued it was thought that an effort had been made to grapple with the financial hardship arising from treatment.
My first point is the terrible responsibility resting on the medical profession. I confess that when I first considered the scheme I thought it embraced T.B. as a whole. I, like many others, know very little about the science of medicine, and one has got to be guided by those who do know something about it. From my contact with the medical profession I find that there are a good many quite honest differences of opinion among it. A great number of medical men take the view that after a certain age T.B. is practically incurable—that men and women who reach a certain age cannot be properly cured at all. The symptoms can, perhaps, be modified, but there is practically no cure, and that is why local authorities, the medical profession and everybody concerned with the disease try to contact the victims of it at the earliest possible stage. What does this scheme mean? It means that unless a medical officer of health says that a person can be cured, that person does not get an allowance. The medical officer must certify that in his opinion the person concerned is likely to respond to treatment. Failing that, there is no allowance for the sufferer.
The refusal of the allowance to a victim of this disease is the worst thing that can be done. In the past the refusal of unemployment benefit had the same effect. It was not the actual refusal of the money alone that was the worst; it was the fact of the refusal that practically sent the refused person to hell, and that is much the same position here. If there was no scheme, a person would not apply, and he would not be refused. Now that there is this scheme, he applies, thinking he comes under it, and the medical officer of health says, "No allowance for you." In effect, he is -saying to that person, "No allowance; absolutely incurable." That is the effect of this scheme, and I think it is a shocking thing. I think we ought to take the view that if a person is prepared to try and try and try, no matter how


incurable his condition may seem to be, the State ought to assist him in every possible way and not condemn him. I know of a capable man who applied for this allowance but was refused on the grounds we have heard. His case had gone too far. It is a terrible thing to contemplate that man being told that, and that sort of treatment cannot be defended.
The other point I wish to make is on the scale of allowances. What is the scale? The allowance for a man and a wife is 39s. That for a child under 10 years is 5s., between 10 and 14 years the allowance is 6s. 6d. and, I think, between 14 and 16 it is 8s. Therefore, in the case of a man and his wife with two children, one child, say, at 5s. and one at 6s. 6d., the total allowance would be 50s. 6d. This was heralded as something great. Actually, this scale is worse than the Glasgow Poor Law scale, because a man is told that as he is insured under National Health Insurance the £1 which he receives under health insurance has to be deducted from the total allowance. Under the Poor Law Acts the first 10s. 6d. of health insurance is excluded.
We had a great Debate here about ex-Service men. What is the position there? If an ex-Service man receives his pension for T.B., the whole of his pension is taken into account. If he gets a pension for a smashed leg or a smashed arm, then £1 of his pension is excluded. Could hon. Members imagine a more cruel device? It means that if an ex-Service man suffering from T.B. and an ex-Service man suffering from a smashed arm or leg both go into hospital, the wife and family of one of them get £1 a week more than the wife and family of the other ex-Service man. Is there any defence for that?
Take the case of the man with a wife and two children who gets the allowance of 50s. 6d. less £1 health insurance, which brings his total income to 30s. 6d., and who has been earning, say, £4 or £5 a week. Where is the financial inducement for that man to be properly treated? When this scheme was introduced I thought it a step forward. As a matter of interest, some of the assistance boards treat the people better. When a man of, say, 65 marries a younger woman of, say, 55, he becomes chargeable to the assistance board, but she may be receiving

National Health Insurance, and in that case their total allowance exceeds the 39s. payable under this particular scheme. The scheme is not attractive, and I trust that the Secretary for Scotland and the Minister of Health will apply their abilities and their minds to seeing that those people who deserve not merely our sympathy but our help get it, and that they will at least make some endeavour to rescue them from the terrible disease from which they suffer.

Lieut.-Colonel H. Guest: I do not wish to intervene in this Debate except to say that I am associated with one of the London hospitals in connection with the T.B. problem, and I think we all welcome the scheme of radiographical stations throughout the country for the early detection of T.B. I think that if T.B. can be detected in the early stages it can be very largely cured. I am associated with some voluntary hospitals connected with the T.B. problem, and I should be grateful to the Minister of Health if he would reveal to us how we are going to associate ourselves, in view of the municipal hospitals, State hospitals, and hospitals maintained by the rates, with those with whom we shall have to work in co-operation. Voluntary hospitals do very good service with this T.B. problem, largely because they are able to carry out research and go in for the very high-class form of surgery which is called for. The greatest trouble that we have, as a research hospital, is to know where to send patients when they have undergone the necessary surgical treatment. If you catch T.B. early enough and treat it properly it can be dealt with, but even with scientific dealing you must have some place where patients can go afterwards to have real remedial care. It is in that connection more than in any other that we in the chest hospitals find the difficulty about recuperative treatment.
I should appreciate it very much if the Ministry of Health could tell us in no uncertain language how the voluntary hospitals which serve such a useful purpose can be best associated with the great State effort which is being made to treat tuberculosis as a whole. Both sides have a function to fulfil. The State can do a lot in the way of general treatment, and the specialist hospitals can do a great deal indeed in scientific development of treat-


ment, but until we know how we are to be related, from the voluntary hospitals to the State hospitals, it is impossible to make any satisfactory progress. Tuberculosis is the great scourge with which this country has to deal and we need to draw in all the efforts of medical skill and science and of voluntary and State help. It is up to the Ministry of Health to guide us how we can best guide the nation to get through this serious and increasing trouble of tuberculosis. I know that the trouble is largely due to housing and nutritional conditions. During the last four years we have had a larger access of T.B. than in the years preceding. The problem can be dealt with and I think that the Government are taking the right line with these radiological centres. If it is possible to detect T.B. before it becomes acute it can be dealt with on broad general lines by voluntary and State effort, and I think that a great step will be made thereby.

Mr. Gallacher: Two years ago or so I was making an inquiry into the incidence of T.B., and as a result of that inquiry I wrote a letter to the Secretary of State for Scotland in which I put forward certain proposals in connection with housing, central cooking and dieting, and one or two other points that I considered essential for combating this disease. I hope that that letter will be dug out and reconsidered in the light of the discussion which has taken place to-day. Many of the points which have been brought out are of the utmost importance if we are to make a serious effort to tackle this terrible disease. I want first of all to draw attention to a matter which should be considered by every sufferer in the country, and it is that tuberculosis is not something that should be hidden or be ashamed of. There is a terrible feeling everywhere that T.B. is a sort of secret crime and that people must not let anyone know that there is anybody in the family suffering from it. One member of a family after another will hide it and never admit its existence to anybody. That is one of the difficulties.
One or two speakers mentioned the necessity of finding out whether there is a carrier of tuberculosis in a family from which cases have come. It should be the duty of the doctor to find an opportunity of examining other members of such families. I have been visiting some of the institutions recently where I have

seen many difficult cases. I was speaking to a case where three members of a family had been through a sanatorium. Then another was brought in, the mother, and it was discovered that she was the carrier in that family. Anyone is liable to the disease if his system is weakened by over-exertion or chills. It should not be thought that T.B. is something peculiar to a family, and people should not hesitate to make its existence known. Mass radiology will be very valuable, but it is not enough. I was talking to a patient the other day who had been called up for the Army. A member of his family had been affected by T.B., so he reported it and asked for an X-ray. He got it, and he was passed A.1. His chest and lungs were as near perfect as could be. A year later he was in a sanatorium. T.B. does not of necessity start in the lungs, but can be in other organs. If a patient is examined by someone who understands the disease, it can be detected. Therefore mass radiology may give very good results in people who nevertheless have T.B. elsewhere in their system.
Children who are affected should be taken away from bad surroundings immediately. There should be a special ward set aside in hospitals for the care of children suffering from T.B. Another important thing is that some interest is provided for patients. I was at the Glen Lomond place, where patients have all kinds of interests provided for them. I liked the method of accommodation, small rooms which were very useful in the treatment, and were very different from the general hospitals with their large wards where all the patients succeed to a great extent in depressing each other. The patients were interested not only in light labour but in making things. They had built themselves a very fine bowling green. Patients can be encouraged to organise entertainments. Musical instruments might be supplied and opportunities given for the development of the theatrical art.
Above everything else I would ask the Department to use their influence with the Board of Trade to get an allocation of 16 millimetre projectors for some of these institutions which are far from any social centre. The Secretary of State for Scotland can say that they get along very well for three months with some patients, and when they have just become of use


they leave, because they are far away from any centre. There is not much chance of social life for patients or nurses. I know that these projectors are of great value to the Forces but I suggest that an allocation should be made so that once a week some entertainment could be given, not only to the patients but to the attendants. I hope that everything will be done to make the scheme a success and that many of the suggestions that have been made to-day will be accepted, because they would strengthen the scheme and make it cover a much bigger range than it will cover in its present state.

Mr. Mathers: In the raising of this matter to-day and in the discussion, I think Scotland has taken more than her share, certainly more than the Goschen quota which is usually allowed to us. It is all to the good that this matter has been raised in the way it has, and I am certain that we do not need to appeal to the Secretary of State for Scotland or to the Under-Secretary of State to be sympathetic to the point of view that we have been putting forward. I am certain that we have that sympathy in advance. In pressing this matter to-day my colleagues have plied the Ministry of Health and the Department of Health for Scotland with reasons why they should demand an improvement in the scheme that has been in operation for a short time.
I know there is keen interest among hon. Members to hear the reply on behalf of the Government, so I will limit myself to one or two points. I shall allow others to speak for me, which I shall do principally by quoting letters from constituents of mine who are suffering from this disease. Out of the number of letters which I have received on this matter I have chosen two from nurses who contracted this disease in the course of their nursing service and are now declared ineligible for any allowance because they are not considered to come within the scope of the scheme for remedial treatment which would enable them to get back to work. There is something serious in the fact that nurses can contract a disease of this kind in their service and be made entirely incapable for work. Yet apparently there is no compensation for them at all and no possibility of their sharing in the scheme.
The first letter I want to quote sets out the experience that the nurse had and the position in which she is now placed, and I wish to quote to the House her summarising of the position after she had been refused an allowance by the medical officer. She says:
So it boils down to this: Either I must stop having the food my condition urgently requires and get into so weak a state that I won't be able to take any precaution to prevent others taking it—[the disease, she means]—or I eat the food which my mother and brother should be having and if (which would be very probable) they should contract the disease the Government will immediately pay them an allowance to prevent T.B. from spreading. It does not sound sense and is it human?
I think there we have the position very succinctly summed up and put in a way which must appeal very powerfully to those who have charge of this scheme and who must realise what the position is. I forwarded it as I do the letters I get in connection with this matter to the Secretary of State for Scotland, and nothing could be more kindly than the type of letter I receive in reply when these cases have to be refused because they do not come precisely within the scope of this scheme. Yet even in sending these kindly worded letters to these people, telling them they are not to have the allowance because of the limitations placed on him, I shrink from doing so. Yet there is no alternative to my making the position known. It is obvious that the patients themselves have not, up to the time of my sending them the reply of the Secretary of State for Scotland, fully realised the position in which they are placed, because that same correspondent, that same nurse from whose letter I quoted, after receiving the reply I was able to send her from the Secretary of State, said:
Had the medical officer been honest with me, I would have saved you the trouble of taking up my case.
There is something despairing about that which I am sure is recognised by anyone who has to deal with a case of that kind. Here is another nurse in exactly the same kind of position who has been denied the opportunity of having this scheme extended to her. I will not go into her history. I simply want to show how the reaction of the refusal of the allowance can be different in one case as compared with another. This correspondent says:
I am deeply grateful to you for the help you have given me in this matter concerning


T.B. I shall look forward to the day when some of my wishes come true. It is because I have the disease myself that I understand so well the sufferings, mental and physical, of those like afflicted and whom I want to help so much. I will try to be patient because I know that huge Government schemes take time to get properly going. Thank you again.
That is her reaction, and I suggest that this is the kind of thing at which this Debate should aim, not to appeal for sympathy, but to inspire those who are in charge of these affairs with the absolute necessity of being more strenuous in their efforts to serve these people and more demanding upon the Treasury, because it is not simply a case of pleading that there is not the accommodation in the different sanatoria throughout the country in order to treat these people. I believe it is necessary to provide money in the homes like those in the first case which I quoted, to provide the money in order that we may be absolutely certain that they are properly fed, that they have a sufficiency of proper nourishment, which, even if it cannot remedy their condition, will certainly alleviate it and have a tendency to prevent the disease from spreading further. My feeling when listening to this Debate to-day is that the Government should be aware that there is a strong feeling in this House that more is required in connection with this matter and that if it be that the remedial measures cannot be properly applied, in any case let us have the means of alleviating the effects of the disease, even if that only means providing more money to meet the case of those who are denied the opportunity of sanatorium treatment and must stay at home.

The Joint Under-Secretary of State for Scotland (Mr. Westwood): The hon. Member for North Camberwell (Mr. Ammon), who opened this Debate, set a very high standard, which has been maintained right to the last speaker in dealing with a subject which, I think, can more keenly interest the Members of this House than almost any other subject, the subject of a disease which has for generations been exercising the minds of those who are keenly interested in our health services, a disease which, in the words of the hon. Member for North Camberwell, is the greatest destroyer of life. While there may have been some criticisms of the scheme that was brought into operation by the Government, and of which it has

been suggested that it does not do all that ought to be done and that it is rather hard on some of those who do not get a 100 per cent. grant from the State payable through the local authority, nevertheless there will go out to the country as a result of this Debate something which I think will be very useful. There are far too many people who have, in their minds even yet, despite all the preaching, all the talking and all the pamphlets dealing with this problem, that this is an incurable disease. One thing as a result of this Debate which I am perfectly sure will be a message of hope to thousands of those suffering from this insidious disease will be the realisation that, if caught in its early stages, if treated properly, getting the advantages which ought to be and can be provided within the limits at our disposal, the medical knowledge that is available and the medical science that can be provided, they can be cured. There is that hope so far as those hundreds, thousands of people are concerned who contract this disease or even may be liable to contract the disease, because I believe it is possible to discover now whether a person is liable to contract the disease and possibly save him even from contracting it. Then in the other cases where it is contracted, by remedial measures, by action taken in its early stages, the people concerned can be restored to health and strength again.
I entirely agree with what has been said by many Member—I think the suggestion has been contained in every speech—that if we are to eradicate this disease from our midst, because at the moment we are only dealing with remedial measures, I think I will go the length of saying that we can never eradicate it from our midst unless we have good housing for our people, unless we have an adequate supply of proper food and unless we have in any social system of the future security from want. These are the three points which were specially made in the opening speech of this Debate by the hon. Member for North Camberwell, which have been followed by almost if not quite every speaker who has taken part in the Debate.

Mr. Kirkwood: This is a workers' complaint; where are the Government?

Mr. Westwood: I am speaking for the Government. I hope I shall make just


as good a job of it as those who have already taken part in this Debate. I will try to keep to as high a level as has been maintained. Special reference has been made to mass radiography and to its inadequacy. We have got to start some time. We have started now, even in the midst of war. It is perfectly true so far as the scheme is concerned, which I will deal with later, that it is a war measure, but I am one of those who sincerely hope that when the bells of peace ring out that will not mean the end of this measure. I want to see it continue. It is quite possible that we may discover, as a result of experience, that there are improvements that can be effected so far as the scheme is concerned, but the mass radiography is a start. Thirty sets are to be provided. Of these, three sets are to be provided in Scotland. That means training staff and getting accommodation, and consequently that cannot be done just at once. The three radiography sets in Scotland will be placed in Glasgow, in Edinburgh, and in the county of Lanark. It is quite possible that we may be able to develop that later, but we are in the midst of war, and there is difficulty in getting these sets, but even in the midst of war we have been trying to do something for the purpose of dealing in the early stages with this particular disease.
Another point raised by several Members in dealing with the general problem of tuberculosis was the shortage of staffs. That happens to be a very distressing fact, a shortage of domestic staffs, a shortage of trained nurses. That is a reality we have to face up to; it is there. Some methods are being tried out with a view to encouraging young, women to enter the nursing profession. I shall not argue at the moment whether they are adequate or not. I am merely pointing out that there are inducements being held out and prospects offered with a view to attracting into the service those who can give their assistance in dealing with these particular problems. I am inclined to think that if we are to meet the requirements of nurses we will require an adequate domestic staff, because you cannot provide the amenities for the nurses unless you have an adequate domestic staff. Therefore the work on which we are engaged just now, even in directing domestics to take service or get work in our hospitals and to recruit in connection with that service,

I for one am perfectly sure will help us in dealing with this particular problem.
The hon. and learned Member for Montgomery (Mr. C. Davies) said there were three outstanding things we had to keep in mind in dealing with this problem: prevention, precaution and treatment. I am rather pleased that he made special reference to the need for developing the feeding of schoolchildren. It is a thing I have argued for ever since I have been in public life. I believe that if it is possible to get in our schools as part of the school curriculum the provision of a well balanced mid-day meal free, and I am working towards it—I remember the Debate on the Scottish Bill very well—we will have gone a long way to improving the health of our children. We can now see the progress being made. We can see the equipment being provided. In my own county of Fife, once we provide the equipment, with the scheme which they now have, we shall have the finest feeding service in Scotland. We shall be able to build up a healthy childhood, which will grow into healthy youth and be able to resist the attacks of tuberculosis. I was very pleased to hear that reference—not the only one which has been made in the Debate—to the need for developing the school feeding service, in the interests of better health.
I come to the scheme which was discussed by the hon. Members for West Fulham (Dr. Summerskill), Greenock (Mr. McNeil), Gorbals (Mr. Buchanan), and others. This is the scheme which has been announced and which is now in operation in Scotland and in England. I put Scotland first, because I am a Scots Minister; no doubt, if an English Minister had been making this speech, he would have put England first.

Mr. Cocks: Why is not an English Minister doing it?

Mr. Westwood: Because I think on this occasion a Scots Minister can do it just as well as anyone else. [Interruption.] It often happens that Scots Members do not help a Scots Minister when he is doing his best. The tuberculosis scheme arises from recommendations made by the Committee on Tuberculosis in War-Time, which was appointed by the Medical Research Council, at the Government's request, in the autumn of 1941. The Committee were asked to advise on possible preventive measures, because there was a serious


increase in the incidence of tuberculosis. That that increase was alarming is shown by the fact that the figures for 1942 showed an increase in pulmonary tuberculosis of 31 per cent. in notifications and 18 per cent. in deaths over the figures for 1938, the last complete peace-time year. To cope with the rise in the incidence of the disease the Committee recommended, among other things, the controlled use of mass radiography.

Sir A. Lambert Ward: What are the figures for non-pulmonary tuberculosis?

Mr. Westwood: The corresponding figures are three per cent. and 12 per cent. I have already given the number of mass radiography sets that are to be made available.

Mr. McNeil: Two years after.

Mr. Westwood: You cannot do everything at once. Yet have to get the sets. It is not a crime to start in the right direction. We have started. [Interruption.] I am not dealing with illusions at present, I am dealing with sets. We have provided 30 sets, to facilitate early diagnosis. Also, special financial assistance has been provided, to induce patients to accept early treatment. The Committee, in recommending this, pointed out that tuberculosis is a special case, the needs of which the ordinary National Health Insurance scheme is not designed to meet. It is clear, from the description in the Report of the special character of the disease, that they were dealing with pulmonary tuberculosis. They say:
It affects the productive groups of the population. It usually extends beyond six months.
I would remind the House that the point of that is that the full sickness benefit under National Health Insurance of 18s. ends then, and is superseded by disablement benefit of 10s. 6d. That tends to reduce the standard of living of the patient and his family, although the patient requires a high standard of living for successful treatment. If the disease is treated in its early stages there is a good chance of full recovery and restoration to work. A scheme for special financial assistance was announced, in accordance with suggestions made by the Committee, so as to contribute, both directly and indirectly, to the control and the prevention of tuberculosis. That was

the basis of the scheme. Directly, an adequate standard of living would aid the conquest of the disease and lessen the risk of its developing in the family, and, indirectly, it would make it easier to persuade the patient to complete his treatment, and not to return to work prematurely. It would remove some of the fear that prevents many adult home contacts from attending for examination, and would increase the acceptance by workers of mass radiography schemes. We have not taken away from the local authorities their responsibility for dealing with this disease. That remains with them. The scheme is worked through the local authorities. Neither have we imposed any new burden upon the local authorities.

Mr. McNeil: A financial burden.

Mr. Westwood: No, we have not imposed any new burden on them. We have taken away some of the financial responsibilities they had. We say that if a case can respond to remedial treatment, if it is in its early stages, instead of coming only under the system which allows in Scotland a grant of approximately 25 per cent. of the cost to be made to the local authority, we will provide 100 per cent. of the cost of allowances if they can induce people to leave off work and to take advantage of the scientific treatment which is available, provided that, in the opinion of the medical officer, they can respond to that treatment. It is still the duty of the local authority to be responsible for that treatment, but when the medical officer decides that the case is able to respond to the treatment, the State will bear 100 per cent. of the cost of the allowances. So far as I understand local administration, there is nothing to hinder them providing exactly the same allowance for the other cases which they have not passed.

Mr. McNeil: Through the Poor Law?

Mr. Westwood: Not necessarily through the Poor Law.

Mr. Buchanan: What is the other method?

Mr. Westwood: My impression is that under the 1929 Act, in Scotland at any rate, provision might be made for payments to sick persons under the health account, as it is. I am not going so far as to say that it would take in the dependants.

Mr. McNeil: rose—

Mr. Westwood: I have not interrupted anybody else, and I am trying to state the case.

Mr. McNeil: You have been very provocative.

Mr. Westwood: It is not the same scheme. I am dealing with the question of allowances. We have not added anything to the cost to the local authorities; we have taken away some of the financial responsibility, by providing 100 per cent. grant for cases approved by their medical officers. On 8th October, 1942, the Minister of Health said in the House that:
Where facilities for diagnosis and treatment are available it is important that those who give up work temporarily for treatment, which is in the interests of the public health no less than their own, should be able to do so without financial anxiety as to the maintenance of their dependants. Local authorities are accordingly being authorised to grant financial assistance in such cases, to provide for the maintenance of the dependants and to avoid the break-up of the home while the breadwinner is undergoing treatment. This assistance is administered by the Public Health authorities as a part of the approved treatment under the tuberculosis scheme, and the cost incurred by them, in accordance with detailed arrangements which I am now working out with their representatives, will be repaid from Exchequer funds.—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 8th October, 1942; col. 1353, Vol. 383.]
I am trying to meet the point made by the hon. Member for Gorbals, who mentioned the scale. The local authorities can also make special discretionary allowances; and we reimburse them, both in Scotland and in England, to the extent of 100 per cent. Special allowances are made, according to need, to meet standing commitments, such as rent, insurance payments and hire purchase payments. Superimposed on that again, there are special payments which the local authority can make, again according to need, to cover travelling expenses of relatives visiting patients in hospital, to provide domestic help where the patient is a housewife, and so on.

Mr. McNeil: Without limit of time or of amount?

Mr. Westwood: All I say is that I know of no case that has been put up to us so far. I am not saying that the scheme is perfect. Neither the hon. Member nor I are perfect; at least I am not.

Dr. Summerskill: Can the right hon. Gentleman tell us what is the limit imposed in providing a substitute for the housewife?

Mr. Westwood: The limit will be 10s.

Dr. Summerskill: Will the right hon. Gentleman tell the House how to find a substitute for the working housewife for 10s. a week?

Mr. Westwood: I am pointing out that this is an experimental scheme, and we shall find that there will have to be adjustments.

Dr. Summerskill: But surely you cannot find a substitute for 10s. a week.

Mr. Westwood: This is an experimental scheme, and I am merely pointing out what the scheme is. An allowance scheme is being applied for pulmonary tuberculosis cases because of considerations of national importance. It is true, and it was pointed out by several speakers, that many sufferers from pulmonary tuberculosis delay or avoid seeking treatment because they fear it may mean a long period of absence from work and subsequent hardship upon the dependants. The object of the allowance is to remove that anxiety.

Mr. Buchanan: Where does it remove it? If you give a man with a wife and two children £2 10s. 6d. at the very most, and he has been earning £4 or £5 per week, I cannot see how you can remove fear and want.

Mr. Westwood: I have not said that we have, but that the object of the scheme was to do that.

Mr. Buchanan: Has it achieved its object?

Mr. Westwood: The allowance would remove that anxiety and allow sufferers to seek treatment at the earliest possible moment. As I have already indicated, the object of the scheme is in the interests of the patient and of the community as a whole. By undertaking early treatment the patient has a better chance of full restoration to health and working capacity, and the allowance assures the well-being of his dependants in the meantime. That is the object of the scheme. It is of at least equal importance in the interests of the community as a whole that sufferers from pulmonary tuberculosis should seek early treatment. A person in industry suffering from this disease may be aware


of his condition or he may carry on work unaware of it and to all appearances be in full health, but in either case his condition is likely to deteriorate progressively. Therefore adequate and timely treatment is of the utmost importance from the point of view of maintaining the public health. This, I submit, is a fundamental justification for making allowances available in pulmonary tuberculosis cases.

Mr. McNeil: The right hon. Gentleman does not make allowances available for pulmonary tuberculosis. That is what we have been talking about.

Mr. Westwood: I am pointing out that the scheme provides relief for pulmonary tuberculosis cases.

Mr. McNeil: Only relief for acute pulmonary tuberculosis cases.

Mr. Buchanan: The schemes does not apply to all people.

Mr. Westwood: The scheme does not apply to all. It applies to those who can respond to treatment and who, if they will leave work in the early stages of the disease, have a chance of complete recovery. As far as Scotland is concerned, it means that three persons out of every four who have applied for assistance have been granted it.

Mr. Gallacher: We want four cases out of four.

Mr. Westwood: That is a matter for argument afterwards, but this is a scheme to induce individuals to get early treatment. The main purpose of the allowances scheme is to rehabilitate those who can be rehabilitated. The scheme, however, allows considerable latitude. Allowances are payable for six months after leaving a sanatorium to all patients who are not fit to resume full work in that period. Thereafter allowances may be renewed on the certificate of the tuberculosis officer for two further periods of six months if remedial treatment is to be continued. If treatment is still required in individual cases thereafter, the Departments have to be informed, but allowances may continue until the Department advises against it up to a period of 12 months. Allowances may be paid to patients where the tuberculosis officer considers that the equivalent of approved sanatorium treatment can be carried out at home under his direction. The Department has to be consulted if it

is proposed to continue this form of treatment beyond 12 months. We recognise that the scheme is in its experimental stage, and we are examining the experience of its working up to date with a view to seeing what improvements can suitably be made in it within the limitation imposed by available hospital resources. We shall look into the position closely.
Meanwhile I sincerely hope the advice given by the hon. Member for Greenock will not be accepted by medical officers of health, when he said that he hoped they would try to make the scheme unworkable. I want everyone to help in making this scheme a success, even although it does not meet all the desires of all my hon. Friends opposite. I was asked whether I could justify it on Christian grounds. I am justifying it here as a Minister of the Crown, but also on Christian grounds

Mr. Gallacher: And on Mohammedan grounds too?

Mr. Westwood: I was not asked on Mohammedan grounds. I cannot speak on Mohammedan grounds. I only speak on Christian grounds. I can defend it anywhere. It does not deal with social security as such. That is a problem to be dealt with in a comprehensive scheme which will deal not merely with the chronics of one disease but, I hope, the chronics of all diseases. This is a remedial measure for the purpose of assisting rehabilitation where it can be made a success, and I have no hesitation in defending the scheme anywhere, believing that it is a step in the right direction. It has benefited three out of four cases in Scotland. We are closely watching the scheme in its operation with a view to finding out where remedies can be applied in any general scheme in the future.

Mr. Cocks: Will my right hon. Friend consider including incurable cases in the consideration that is to be given to the question in future?

Mr. Westwood: I cannot say that I can do that. I said that I hope incurable or chronic cases will come within the general security scheme and will not apply only to those suffering from one disease but for all diseases.

Dr. Summerskill: The right hon. gentleman said that the scheme had benefited three out of every four cases in


Scotland. Does he mean it benefited three out of every four cases recommended for the allowance or three out of every four cases of patients suffering from pulmonary tuberculosis in Scotland, as that is a very different thing?

Mr. Westwood: I cannot say that it is three out of every four cases of people suffering from tuberculosis, but it has benefited three out of every four cases where application has been made. They have to make application.

Dr. Summerskill: Those are the acute cases. What is the number of cases?

Mr. Westwood: There were about 2,700 cases. If I had sufficient time, I would give all the details. I am always willing to give exact figures if desired. I have them here, but I know that I have almost exhausted my time under the arrangements made for other hon. Members to raise another subject, and I wanted to give way to them. There have been approximately 2,700 cases for which application has been made.

GREECE AND BELGIUM (FOOD AND MEDICAL SUPPLIES)

Mr. Stokes: I have given notice, on behalf of a considerable number of other Members, of all parties, in the House, to the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Economic Warfare that we want to take this opportunity of raising what to many of us inside this House and to a great number of people outside is the very vital question of famine relief in Europe during the war in what is known as occupied territory. I can assure my hon. Friend that we approach this matter in a spirit of intense persuasiveness. We understand many of his difficulties and have no wish whatever to ask for the impossible. We want him to listen to what we have to say and to see whether he can do something to meet us in the further relief for which we are asking in certain territories. There is a very strong feeling outside the House, both in this country and elsewhere, that something more should be done than is at present being done by His Majesty's Government. Let me make it plain at once to those hon. Members, particularly as I do not see them here, who are criti-

cising us for wanting apparently to be of assistance to the enemy, that no one wants to do anything which may assist the enemy. We do not believe that the assistance for which we ask, if carried out properly and in a way well known to the Parliamentary Secretary, would be assistance of any kind whatever to the enemy.
In order not to make the scope of the Debate too wide, we want particularly to refer to two aspects; first of all, an increased amount of relief of foodstuffs to Greece and, secondly, to urge His Majesty's Government to consider falling in with the requests, which, I understand, have been made—certainly they are well known—of the Belgian Government, that something should be done in the way of essential medical provisions and vitamins for our Allies the Belgians. And this is limited, as an hon. Friend points out, in the case of Belgium, to nursing mothers and small children. We are asking for controlled relief. As there may be some misapprehension, I will describe what that means. There are two types of controlled relief. There is the kind of controlled relief where there is the existence of neutral means of supervising the distribution of the stuff when it arrives, and the other type, that I call controlled relief, is where the relief supplied is so little and gradual that even if there was abuse you could effect control by turning off supplies from the source from which they come; and if the enemy did use such supplies, further supplies could be stopped.
My mind—to-morrow being 11th November—goes back to that time when we closed down on the last war in 1918. I am reminded, as the House will be, that in that war, as in this, the Greeks and Belgians were our Allies. They still are our Allies, and everybody knows what a gallant fight was put up in Greece, and I believe that history will prove that the Belgians did not do so badly either in extraordinarily difficult circumstances. My mind went back also to the dreadful condition of things found in Europe after the last war. Some people might accuse me of being sentimental. I do not know anything worth living for except some sort of sentiment. I remember the shock it gave me when I saw a starving child. To appreciate what a starving child means you have to pick it up and hold it in the light


and looking through it see nothing but skin and bone. It is a tragic thought that starvation conditions prevail now. And I submit that it will be due, in my view, to the wrongful attitude on the part of His Majesty's Government if the same kind of conditions prevail in some of the territories of our Allies as prevailed in other parts of Europe at the end of the last war.
Our special appeal, as I have said, is to help forward both the Belgians and the Greeks, and while I do not want to go into any great amount of statistical data, I think it is important that the House should realise where the foodstuffs for these territories came from prior to the outbreak of the war. When I speak of foodstuffs I include food for human consumption and feeding stuffs for animals which provide human food within the territory. I believe I am right in saying that prior to the outbreak of the war 70 per cent. of the foodstuffs consumed in Belgium came from outside what we call the blockade and approximately 60 per cent. in the case of Greece. I would ask hon. Members to bear that constantly in mind when listening to the Debate. It is quite a mistake to think that those countries are normally self-providing and that the enemy has gone in and filched all the foodstuffs and has left them starving. Without supplies from outside they are quite incapable of maintaining, themselves, even if the enemy did not take away an ounce of foodstuffs.
May I deal with one or two of the arguments which are normally raised against famine relief of any kind? The first one is, as I have said, that it will help the enemy. Well, we do not want to do anything that will help the enemy. We do not believe that assistance of this kind, properly controlled and limited in its scope, will be of any assistance to the enemy whatever. It will not provide, for Belgium, food for the adult population. The Germans look after that themselves. Where adults are used to further the efforts of the German war machine the Germans see that they are well fed. The people we are seeking to assist are those who are not being helped by the Germans, those we hope to rely on in the future, whatever the date may be. There is the further argument that supplies will be abused. I have yet to learn from the Parliamentary Secretary that there has been any authentic case of any serious

abuse or of supplies being taken away. In support of that, I will quote from a report of a State Department of the United States of America of April this year:
Information from neutral sources indicates that food relief supplies being sent to Greece are being distributed to the people without interference by the occupation authorities and that there has been no diversion of these supplies to the enemy.
It is constantly represented to me by people who study this matter that there has been no serious abuse of any kind whatever. Another point in support of the contention that it will not help the enemy is that, so far as I know, both the Greek and Belgian Governments in this country are not in agreement with the present policy being pursued by His Majesty's Government. Surely their advice ought to receive serious consideration. After all, they are just as anxious as anybody to have the enemy beaten and out of their territory. Neither Government would ask for anything to be done which would prolong their agony and the war. Finally on this point, I would emphasise that as regards medicinal stores, particularly in the case of Belgium, dried milk and vitamin tablets, there is not the slightest case for saying that they would help the enemy or would relieve them of another of their responsibilities.
The next big argument is this: constantly it is stated, and the Parliamentary Secretary has stated in answers to Questions, that it is the responsibility of the Axis to feed the populations of the occupied territories. The hon. Gentleman has quoted to me Clauses 47 to 52 of the Hague Convention, No. IV, of 1907. I am not a lawyer—the hon. Gentleman is—but I made a search through those Clauses, and I cannot find any reference there which will indicate that the occupying Power is responsible for making good the foodstuffs that come from outside the territory. I would like the Attorney-General to come here and, as a lawyer, tell me precisely where it is in the Hague Convention that this responsibility is laid upon the occupying Power. In connection with this point of foodstuffs in and out, the hon. Gentleman, in an answer to a Question on 27th October, told me that imports from Axis sources into Greece and Belgium exceeded the exports of those two countries. So I do not see what there is further to argue about with regard to that form of possible abuse.
Then comes the question of moral obligation I consider that this is a silly argument. We are not fighting the Germans because they are moral but because they are amoral, and to tell me that a moral obligation rests on the Germans to do something cuts no ice whatever, especially as you cannot feed starving children on moral obligations. It is revolting to think that there are millions of nursing mothers and unfed children who, with a small amount of aid from us, would be relieved of much of their agony and suffering. As an ordinary Member, I take the view that it is as much our moral obligation to see that something is done as anybody else's obligation. It is no use saying that just because the Germans do not stand by their moral obligations we shall do nothing about it. The argument produced by Ministers—and I think the Foreign Secretary is among those who have used it—is that you cannot do it for one or two countries without doing it for all the others. I think that is wrong. It is quite absurd to say you will do nothing because you cannot do everything. We quite understand that in the case of Poland and Czechoslovakia it is very difficult to attempt to do anything, and I understand that the Dutch Government have expressed the view that they do not want anything to be done. The two countries we are particularly pleading for to-day are Greece and Belgium, who supported us in the last war and to whom we are looking for support again when we invade Europe. We feel that we should show our humanity, our gratitude for their efforts, and our recognition that their main supplies come from outside during the war in doing something more than the Government have been doing up to the present time.
Another argument used is that domestic produce from the countries concerned might be withdrawn if further supplies are sent in. Has that proved to be the case? In point of fact we have been doing this for Greece, to a considerable extent, for a long time, so the argument that by doing it for one you must do it for all has already broken down in practice. Apart from that, is there any real evidence that domestic produce has been taken away? I would like to quote what the Archbishop of Canterbury said on this point about helping the enemy:

I am convinced that the schemes to which I have given my support, and which have been carefully worked out, would not aid the enemy or hinder our war effort.
I would like to refer to a point made by the Parliamentary Secretary on 8th July, when we last debated this subject. He said that the supply of some of the foodstuffs would relieve the strain on the enemy's transport system. Is that really a serious thought? Take the case of Belgium. We are asking for only 2,000 tons a month. That means seven 10-ton trucks a day. Does he really say that that will seriously interfere with the enemy's transport system or relieve them of any great burden, more especially as they are not supplying now. As for claiming that we have not the shipping available, the answer to that is that the stuff would be carried in neutral bottoms, provided by Belgium or Greece, as the case may be, and would not interfere with our shipping resources at all. Take the case of Greece itself. At the present time Greece is getting something like 15,000 to 20,000 tons per month. That is splendid. It is much more than went there before we started the agitation about this matter. Both the Swiss-Swedish Commission working in that country and, I understand, the Greek Government have asked for a further 4,000 tons of fresh food a month. If that is so, is there any reason why they should not get it? If it can be proved that food has-been properly distributed and has not helped the enemy, then there is no reason why further supplies should not be made available.
As an argument against doing any more, the Parliamentary Secretary told us that there was a better harvest in Greece this year and that they would not need so much help from outside. That was in answer to a Question on 29th September. My answer to that is that Mr. George Exintaris, who is the ex-Minister of Agriculture in the Greek Government, has said that the harvest this year is bad and that famine conditions will prevail. I will quote his actual words in this extract from the "Manchester Guardian" of 8th October, 1943:
Unless what he calls the 'unexpected' happens and Greece is liberated this year Mr. George Exintaris, a former Greek Minister of Agriculture, who escaped from his country in June, is afraid that famine conditions this winter will be as bad as in the black five months at the turn of 1941–42. From January to June, he said, the food situation in Greece


was much better, partly because of the help from Canada and elsewhere and partly because a feeling of confidence swept the country and all the existing reserves were freely used. Since then, however, there has been a quick deterioration. The crop has been bad, there is a deficit of 150,000 tons of wheat and the stock have gone. He wants the shipment to Greece to be increased by 2,000 tons a month of fish and meat products, by 2,000 tons of rice, and by extra milk—that is, if the 'unexpected' does not happen.
It would appear, therefore, that the Parliamentary Secretary is not correctly informed as to the state of crops in that territory. In view of what has been happening in Athens let us consider what a great difference even the small amount of relief they have already had has made to the population. I am told that 500 died of hunger in Athens and Piraeus in the first two weeks of October this year. That is fewer than was the case in the black months of two or three years ago when 1,700 died every day. On 14th October this year the hon. Gentleman told us that no extra request from the Swiss-Swedish Commission had been received. I do not understand that, because I have been given to understand that they have asked for extra supplies over and above the 15,000 to 20,000 tons.

The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Economic Warfare (Mr. Dingle Foot): Would the hon. Member give me the date of the answer to the Question he has just mentioned?

Mr. Stokes: It was 14th October this year. To turn to Belgium, I have stated that 70 per cent. of her feeding-stuffs come from outside the blockade, and I believe that to be substantially true, but what I think is not generally realised is that we get a very considerable amount of supplies from such places as the Belgian Congo, a fertile country whose supplies are available for the use of the United Nations. Surely that should be borne in mind when we are considering whether we are going to help our colleagues in Belgium or not. At present we are not sending anything at all. Yet we are using the products of the Congo. There is, as in the case of Greece, both shipping and money available.
I join issue with the Noble Lord the senior Minister, who stated on 15th October that the reason the people of Europe are hungry is because the Germans have stolen their food. I agree

that the reason why the people of Europe are hungrier than they need be is that the Germans have taken much of their food, but 70 per cent. of the normal feeding-stuffs which the Belgians consumed came from outside Europe. That is a criticism that we are going to have to face for ever when the war comes to an end, and our Allies may very well curse us for what we have done. In December, 1941, there were 69,000 special food cards issued in Belgium for tubercular cases. Fifteen months later that figure had gone up to 109,000. Forty per cent. of the children in Ghent are suffering from rickets, and 80 per cent. in other parts, largely because they are short of vitamin D. In the ordinary children's homes, where sickening children go to recuperate, the ordinary daily rations have been reduced by as much as 50 per cent. What kind of nation are our friends in Belgium going to be reduced to if this is allowed to continue?
I asked the Minister on 8th July a Question to which I never got a convincing answer. In the early days of 1941 what I referred to loosely as the Hoover scheme was proposed to the Belgian Government, the German Government and ourselves. It was welcomed by the Belgian Government, and the German Government accepted it in principle. It may be that, had we pursued it, we should have come up against all sorts of difficulties and not been able to carry it through. But is it not true that at or about the same time, after His Majesty's Government turned down that proposal, the Belgian Government brought in a scheme of the same nature for the approval of His Majesty's Government which has not been accepted?
There are three other specific questions that I want to ask. First, as the hon. Gentleman hangs so much of the Government case on the responsibility of the occupying Power under the Hague Convention, will he or one of the Law Officers tell us precisely where in the Hague Convention it is stated to be the responsibility of the occupying Power to make good shortages caused by the blockade, as we call it—I agree it is a loose term—shortages due to the fact that feeding stuffs from outside the blockade are no longer possible? The Hague Convention, I do not believe, ever contemplated the state of things that we now see. Secondly, has


any instructed or authoritative opinion ever shown that the 1914–18 Hoover scheme, which was accepted by us for supplying food to the starving peoples of Europe, proved to be a mistake? Has there been any authoritative evidence that substantial supplies were misused and misdirected by the enemy? In the Debate on the 8th, I accepted a statement that there had been abuse, but I am told that I was wrong and that there is no authoritative evidence. If the hon. Gentleman has any evidence, I shall be glad to hear it. Thirdly, are the present Greek and Belgian Governments domiciled in this country in agreement with the present policy of the Government or in disagreement? In the case of Greece, would they welcome more relief and do they consider that it could be supplied without helping the enemy, and in the case of Belgium are they definitely pressing for these moderate supplies for which we are now asking? It is interesting to consider what our great Russian Allies think about this matter. Here is a quotation from a note handed to the British Ambassador in Moscow on 25th October, 1939:
It is known that the universally recognised principles of international law do not permit the air bombardment of the peaceful population, women, children and aged people. On the same grounds the Soviet Government deem it not permissible to deprive the peaceful population of foodstuffs, fuel and clothing and thus subject children, women and aged people and invalids to every hardship and privation by proclaiming the goods of popular consumption as war contraband.
I do not believe the Government of the U.S.S.R. have changed their views for a moment. Have they stated that they have?
To follow the policy that we are recommending is obviously good business. When the war comes to an end, unless we now do something about it, surely the only well-fed, fat, sleek people are going to be Germans, and all our friendly populations are going to be down-and-out, and starving, and they will hate us and be quite unable to govern Europe. They may be glad to be liberated from the Nazi yoke, but though unfortunately I am not a parent, I can imagine the awful bitterness which will prevail in the hearts of the parents of children as a result of the restrictions they have been suffering, and in many cases death, for the want of foodstuffs. There is a huge body of opin-

ion in America and here that wants the Government to do something—none of us want to do anything which will help the enemy—to help the children and the nursing mothers in Belgium and give a little further relief to the starving people of Greece, showing that we really are fighting for Christian principles and that we recognise that these people are our Allies and are entitled to some substantial consideration.

Mr. Harold Nicolson: I am glad to have an opportunity to take part in this Debate, since it deals with a subject of very serious importance—one in fact which involves a grave question of national responsibility—and since I think it is right that such matters should be discussed in every part of the House by people who in other ways may not always take the same point of view. I am not a sentimentalist. I do not believe you can defeat panzer divisions by strewing cowslips in their path. I am not a pacifist. I believe the only way we can get total victory is by total war. I do not wish in any way to embarrass the Government, of which I am a most ardent supporter, nor do I in any way wish to criticise the Ministry of Economic Warfare. I believe they have in these difficult years carried out their functions most efficiently. It is not their efficiency I question; it is their state of mind. I have certain apprehensions about that. It is my experience that the young Departments—mushroom, possibly fungoid, Departments—have not possessed the traditions, and therefore the self-confidence, and therefore the flexibility, of the older institutions of State. I fear that the Ministry of Economic Warfare, being a Ministry of denial, may concentrate too closely upon negatives. I would beg the hon. Gentleman to search his conscience and consider whether, in the long years in which his Department have been training for battle and taking part in the muscular contests and wrestling matches in which with so much success they have engaged, it is not possible that the Department may have become a little muscle-bound. I would ask him to consider this matter not with a closed mind but with all the rich resources of liberal humanism.
I was a few days ago in Sweden, and I had occasion to speak to and interview


a great many earnest and intelligent men who since the beginning of the war have devoted their experience and their energies to a study of the nutrition problem in occupied Europe and to the means by which malnutrition could be at least alleviated. I found it difficult to meet the arguments that they put to me. When we are in this House we take a delight—after all, it is our privilege and our pleasure—in criticising the action of Government Departments. When we go abroad we all feel that we must rebut and disprove criticisms of our Government. I know that when I heard these statements in Sweden I felt a rush of loyalty towards the Ministry of Economic Warfare, but I racked my brains to think of the arguments Ministers have in the past given me, hoping that I should find in them some armour-piercing javelins which would confound and utterly rout my Swedish critics. I searched, and what did I find in the palm of my hand? Not a javelin, not even a pointed dart, but just a handful of dust. I had not come to Sweden to throw dust in the face of the Swedish Red Cross.
They said to me, "Do your Government, do the House of Commons, know the conditions in Belgium and Greece? Do they see the vital statistics? Do they know the tuberculosis figures? Have they had the facts about child welfare?" "Yes," I said, "I think they have all the information." Then they said, "Is it that they mistrust the Swedish Red Cross or the Swiss Red Cross? Is it that they have no confidence in the international arrangements that we have made?" "No," I said "the Swedish Red Cross and the Swiss Red Cross are regarded in England with the deepest respect and admiration." Then they said, "Is it that your Government imagine that we are trying to send great fat food ships into Belgium? Is the House of Commons aware of what a tiny little scheme we have? Do they not realise that we can provide the ships and the money and the stuff and that it is only the navicerts that are spoiling what we wish to do?" "Yes," I said, "the House of Commons knows that." Then they said, "What is the reason?" I said, "There may be reasons of which I am unaware," and they replied, "Well, they must be very strange and very recondite reasons since, to us, the attitude of

your Government in this matter is not in harmony with the high repute which Great Britain in these years has won."
What arguments could I bring out, but that wretched little trilogy of arguments which we have had before and to which my hon. Friend the Member for Ipswich (Mr. Stokes) has referred, but which I, if he will allow me, would also examine? There is, first, the absurd argument that we would be helping the enemy. I do not think that anything I have ever done in public or in private life has ever helped any Nazi in any way at all. I am perfectly convinced that in comparison with the great rocks of discomfort, the great precipices of destruction, which we are hurling upon Germany, any benefit they could get from this scheme would be worth no more than perhaps one, or perhaps two, or perhaps three, grains of sand. The thing is too disproportionate to be mentioned. A little drop of benefit might accrue to them, compared with the ocean of relief and encouragement which would thereby be given not merely to our Allies but to unborn generations in Greece and Belgium. No, I could not use to the Swedes the argument that it might help the enemy. It is a grotesque argument.
What about the second argument, that argument which I so regret to say my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary, who has not an escapist mind, used in this House in September last; the argument of the irresolute man, the argument of the thin end of the wedge? Is the fabric of our policy, is the structure of our resolution, made of such friable material that we are afraid of a wedge or two in our system? Are we in this country, we who have withstood the hammer blows of disastrous fortune, to be afraid of a little peg of wood? Surely, as my hon. Friend has said, in the Ministry of Economic Warfare we have an immense and perfectly patterned machine, a "cat and mouse" machine; and surely if a scheme such as we advocate were found to be moving dangerously, it would only be necessary to make a motion of the finger and thumb and the tap would be turned off. So I was ashamed to use to the Swedes the argument about the thin end of the wedge.
Then there is the third argument to which my hon. Friend referred, the argument about the obligation imposed by the Hague Convention on the occupying country. I dare say that my hon. Friend is


right in saying that the Hague Convention of 1907 did not contain a Clause obliging the occupying country to maintain a pre-war level of imports. But it is a generally recognised principle of international law that the occupying country is responsible for maintaining nutrition in the occupied country above starvation level. I hate those words "starvation level." It is a horrible phrase, it is inaccurate, and it is often used carelessly in statistics. What is starvation level for an adult man is something quite different from what is starvation level to a little Greek child on some of these barren islands. Yet there is, it is true, a generally recognised principle of international law such as I have mentioned. But am I to say, am I to believe, that His Majesty's Government base a policy upon the assumption that any international principle will be followed and adhered to by the Nazi Government? This seems to me as grotesque as to say that you could moor a Dreadnought with a cobweb. No, there is no principle, no German principle, in this matter on which we can rely. But there is a German policy. It is a deliberate policy, a policy which was set out as long ago as 1934, a policy which they have effected with the utmost skill, with the most consummate strategy, with incomparable efficiency. It is the policy of so debilitating the populations of occupied countries that they will be unable to resist. It is even more fiendish than that. It is the policy of so debilitating those populations that even the generations yet to be born will be incapable of resisting the future encroachments of the herrenvolk.
I claim that it is the duty and the right and the privilege of this House to urge the Government to defeat that policy. Although we know very well that we cannot do much to defeat that policy, we also know that we can do a little; and I do not think we should be deterred, and I shall certainly not be deterred, from pressing that view in season and out of season whatever the Ministry of Economic Warfare may say. When I asked about this before, I was told that the door was not closed. I wish it were, because then we would break it open. As it is, the door is on the latch and there is a mighty strong chain hidden somewhere in that latch. I could not say these things to the Swedes when they told me that this did not seem to be in

harmony with the high repute which Great Britain had won in all these years. I could not answer them, but I hope that this House will see that what we are asking for is a very little thing. I hope it will not be imagined from what my hon. Friend said about the Hoover scheme in the last war that we are asking for anything like that. I do not agree with my hon. Friend that the Hoover Scheme did not help the enemy. It did, and I could show my hon. Friend the passage in Ludendorff's book in which he admits that. I would not dream of anything approaching the extent of the Hoover scheme. I am not thinking of fat food ships being sent to Athens but of giving to Greeks, under a scheme which has worked so well, without any cost to ourselves in shipping or in money, a larger quantity, and a different quality, of the foods which they now require.
We have been told by Mr. Exintaris, recently Greek Minister of Agriculture, exactly what the position is in Greece to-day. We have been told how, after the victory of E1 Alamein, the Greeks imagined that we would be arriving on the morrow. We know that the harvest which promised to be so good has proved defective. We know what the circumstances are to-day and that 400 people are dying in the streets of Athens every week. We know that the suggestions which have been made could rapidly be put into practice. But that is not the only thing. In Greece we have managed to save a good many, thanks to the Swedish Red Cross. But in Belgium we have done nothing at all and the vital statistics in Belgium are perfectly appalling. We know that the Swedes have planned already to send stuff through Lisbon in a sealed train to Belgium, not for the whole population but for the children between six and fourteen which is the critical age. We cannot do anything. Why? Because of the Ministry of Economic Warfare. I do not think this House ought to lie down under that. I do not think the Ministry ought to accept that position. I beg my hon. Friend, in all earnestness, not to continue to adopt the obstinate attitude which he adopted before. If he gives way and accepts our scheme, then surely he will be giving life, and the hope of life, not only to the present population but, as I have said, to the children yet unborn


in those countries—and I am using no rhetorical phrase. If he does not do that, then I say he will be disregarding what I hope is the conscience of this House. He is disregarding what I imagine is the conscience of the United States. He is disregarding what I believe to be the conscience of the people of this country. And he is disregarding what I know to be the conscience of the neutral world.

Sir Peter Bennett: I wish to support the case which has been put forward by the hon. Member for Ipswich (Mr. Stokes). It is not often that I find myself in agreement inside this House with my hon. Friend. I am in agreement with him outside on matters of business and of sport, but I think this is the first time I have ever had an opportunity of saying a word in his favour inside the House. But I support the case which he put forward and which, I may say, he put forward so ably and, for him, with so much restraint. Political parties and sections do not enter into a matter of this kind at all. We are striving to put to the Minister a purely humanitarian point of view and I do not wish it to be thought that we are claiming to have any more humanity than Ministers of the Crown possess. I have discussed this with a number of them and have endeavoured to explain to them that we have no more virtue in this respect than they have, that we know they are as much human beings as we are, but that we feel they are being a little too much hidebound by rules and regulations, and a little too frightened to let their hearts have a say as against cold logic. I have never lived by logic. I do not find that it gets me anywhere. I find, in a good many cases, it is better to let that intuition which you can hardly explain take charge of your actions, and, in a good many cases, it is worth more than the cold logic of reason. At any rate, that has been the principle of my life.
I would like to suggest to my hon. Friend on the Front Bench, who is not quite so old as I am, that he might step outside his legal training and allow, for a short time, his heart and intuition to carry him along. I have not had the pleasure of discussing this matter with the Swedish Red Cross, but I have had to try and explain the attitude of our Government first of all to some good friends of this

country in America, and I, frankly, found it impossible. Then I have had to try to explain it to my own constituents. I have had interviews with the Ministers, and I have tried to go back and reassure my constituents with what I have been told in answer to their questions, but I found it quite impossible to convince them that those reasons were really sound.
It was agreed to-day that this very small quantity of dried milk and vitamins was available to be sent for the use of the Belgian children. It was agreed that they are available, that the shipping is available, that the people to distribute them are available, and that they will see that they get into the right hands. How can the Government say that this would be helping the Germans and postpone the end of the war? If we thought that, we would not be pressing it. One point I want to make is that there can be no question of opening the door or putting in the wedge, because it is solely for the benefit of nursing mothers and the children on a very limited scale. If the Germans tried to take advantage of this, it would be instantly noticed. If they sent less food to the adults because we tried to help the mothers and children, it would be seen at once. Here is an opportunity where we can, without transgressing the main points suggested by the Foreign Secretary and others, help our friends without hindering the progress of the war. We cannot in any way be accused of arguing against that in making this small gesture, and I can assure the Minister that we shall be doing something that will put heart into the Belgian people. Those who travelled on the Continent just after the last war will remember the children's sufferings. They will remember that we were accused of being responsible for them, and I do hope that the Minister, who I am certain has a heart as large as any of ours, will consider whether, without running any risk whatever, he can fall in with this suggestion to help the peoples of Belgium and Greece.

Mr. Edmund Harvey: The case that has been brought before, the House has been put with such ability and with such moderation by my three hon. Friends who preceded me that I feel there is very little that I need add to the points they have made, except to emphasise again that in


raising this plea once more, as some of us did in July last, we are supported by new facts which the Minister, I am sure, would wish to take into account. One of the new facts is that the harvest in Greece during the last summer has not been, as he expected, a good one, but, unfortunately, a very bad one. Another fact that has been recently revealed is the terrible increase of tuberculosis in Belgium. We had given to us by my hon. Friend the Member for Ipswich (Mr. Stokes) some figures that have come from the Belgian Government and from Belgian medical experts. We have also a report of the Secretary of State's Department of the United States, issued as recently as May of this year, in which it is stated:
We have concluded that at least one-third of the young persons in Belgium are suffering from tuberculosis.
Earlier in this Debate we spent several hours in considering the problem of tuberculosis in our own country. What would have been the cry of indignation that would have gone up from both sides of this House, if it had been said that at least one-third of the young people of this country were suffering from tuberculosis? Yet that is said of the children of Belgium in the report of the American State Department. Are we to do nothing to help this tragic situation? The Minister who was seated on that bench an hour or two ago, said, in dealing with the problem of tuberculosis in our country, that it requires a full standard of living to combat the disease. Do my hon. Friends who listened to that Debate see the irony of our saying that of the tuberculosis sufferers in our own country, and, at the same time, refusing, not to give ourselves, but to allow to others the opportunity of giving, for the benefit of the women and children of Belgium.

Earl Winterton: Does the hon. Member seriously suggest that we in this country are responsible for the condition of people in the occupied countries?

Mr. Harvey: My Noble Friend entirely misinterprets what I said. I am asking that navicerts should be permitted to the Belgian Government to purchase food themselves and have it transported in neutral vessels for the young children and nursing mothers only. That is the simple request that is being made. If the Noble

Lord had heard the earlier Debate he would have known that. We are not concerned with feeding the whole population.

Earl Winterton: I want to bring out this point. Is it not a fact that the great advance in tuberculosis in Europe is a result of the gross starvation by the Nazis of the millions of people in the occupied countries?

Mr. Harvey: The treatment of Europe by the Nazi authorities is very largely responsible. No one in this House doubts that, but the fact remains that, in spite of this, we can if we wish, do something to help a considerable number of this neediest section of our own Allies. We are not asking for the general feeding of the whole population of Europe. We are asking for an exceedingly limited scheme to help the young children and the nursing mothers of Belgium, a scheme to be carried out under the strictest control and under the aegis of the International Red Cross. I think that the position in regard to Belgium is so serious that it does need reconsideration, and I take comfort from the fact that somewhere, if not here, it is being reconsidered.
In a recent issue of "The Times" their Washington correspondent reported an interview with the Acting Secretary of State, Mr. Stettinius. According to this report Mr. Stettinius said that the possibility of an arrangement with the British, Swedish and Swiss Governments to ship goods to countries occupied by the enemy, primarily for hungry children—a question now before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee—was being studied by the competent Government agencies. That was as recently as 4th of November. I plead with my hon. Friend that he will go on studying the matter until he finds a positive solution. I am sure his heart is with our hearts in this and that he will be only too glad to find a solution. Are we not, in the eyes of the neutral nations, in danger of appearing like the priest and the Levite passing by on the other side, while the wounded traveller lies by the roadside?
I wish my hon. Friend the Parliamentary Secretary could have been in his old place below me to-night. What a speech he would have made to urge the case for help to suffering humanity. I think my hon. Friend, with his great ability, could


put the case to-day for the priest and the Levite. He would tell us that the Levite was a man with only a limited amount of money, which he felt he needed for his own family and had he given it to the wounded man, at the next turn of the road there would be another wounded man wanting help and then another and his money would all be gone. The priest looked farther ahead and said, "It is no use doing this. We are very sorry for this wounded man but the real remedy is that we must have strict police action to put down brigandage." That is the kind of defence that I am sure my hon. Friend could make even for the priest and the Levite, but it is not the kind of action which appeals to the ordinary citizen in this country and I am sure it is not, in his own heart, his own attitude.
It is not how the British soldier feels. We saw how in Sicily our soldiers, tired, hungry and weary and having to face the danger of mortal combat, shared their rations with the hungry children, and those the children of an enemy nation. We have been deeply moved recently by the account of how our wounded prisoners, coming back after years of captivity, when they left their port in Sweden have surrendered their packages of food and little comforts for their hungry friends in Occupied Norway. We saw a picture of those food packages and chocolate piled high upon the wharf, to be forwarded by the Swedish Red Cross to help the Norwegians. That was contrary to the views of the Ministry of Economic Warfare. How is it that the Ministry had not a representative there to plead with these soldiers and to say "You cannot do it," The hearts of those men were touched. They represented the true Britain and, surely, we in the House of Commons must be willing to back them up. I know that my hon. Friend is there to represent his Ministry, the Ministry of Economic Warfare. I used to think that the economic man was a miserable figment of the economists, a horrible bloodless creature without a heart and without imagination. I believe that in the Ministry of Economic Warfare the economic man exists. I beg my hon. Friend to stand up against him in the name of all that has made this country great, in the name of our common humanity and in the name of that Christianity which we profess with our lips, but too often dishonour in our lives.

Mr. Molson: The House has, I am sure, been deeply moved, as it always is, by the passionate sincerity in any humane cause of my hon. Friend the Member for the Combined English Universities (Mr. E. Harvey). I do not think, however, that he was quite right when he sought to draw a distinction between what the Parliamentary Secretary would be saying if he were on the back bench and what he is going to say, no doubt, as representing his Department. It is not pleasant for anyone to ask the Government to refuse to respond to the appeal that has been made, and yet it is because I am deeply convinced that the blockade, and the blockade maintained in its full rigour, is essential for bringing the war to an end at the earliest possible moment that I appeal to my hon. Friend to stand absolutely firm.
When in his speech my hon. Friend the Member for West Leicester (Mr. H. Nicolson) criticised the Ministry of Economic Warfare as a new and upstart Ministry, I could not help recalling the melancholy record of the Foreign Office during those early years of the last war when my hon. Friend was an official of the Foreign Office. All that has been published in the succeeding years has shown us how greatly Germany benefited from large importations through neutral countries. My hon. Friend the Member for West Leicester has once more been hobnobbing with a neutral country which is one of the few which are not victims of the enemy occupation. I do hope that it will not have escaped the notice of the House that my hon. Friend referred to the large scale and deliberate policy of starvation which has been embarked upon by the Germans in this war. How he can say that this general policy of starving the whole of Europe has been started by the Germans and remorselessly carried through, and at the same time propose any considerable relief or benefit to all those millions of children in occupied Europe by the importation of a few hundreds of tons of powdered milk, I confess I am entirely at a loss to understand. If once the principle were established for some particular favoured part of occupied Europe that the rigour of the British blockade was to be departed from, then the whole logic and consistency of our position would have been abandoned, and the door would be open to unlimited claims from all the countries which are suffering in the same way. I therefore


hope that my hon. Friend, whose position in this matter has always been so firm, will stand firmly to his guns now.

Mr. William Brown: I have listened with considerable emotion to the speeches that have been made. We had what I regard as a characteristically brave utterance from the hon. Member for Ipswich (Mr. Stokes) and a very noble utterance from my hon. Friend the Member for West Leicester (Mr. H. Nicolson). I want to concentrate on three points. First, it is argued against us that it is necessary, for the winning of the war, that this blockade should be maintained in its entirety. I regard that as utter and complete nonsense. Does the Minister think that his blockade is any substitute for what the Russians are doing on the Eastern front? Does he believe that it is any substitute for what we hope will be done on the Western front at an early date? Germany is not going to be defeated by starving the children of our Allies. Germany is going to be defeated by massive hammer blows from left and right.
In that set-up, it is argued that we must maintain the blockade to the point where we produce—"we" produce, just note that—in co-operation with our German allies—for, believe me, the Minister is an ally of Germany in this matter—[An HON. MEMBER: "Monstrous."] I am entitled to say that, and I shall hope to show, within the limits of my argument, that I think the Minister is a long-term ally of Germany for reasons I shall give—a situation in the Allied countries of which we ought to be ashamed, and which we should put right at the earliest possible moment. I am charged with making a monstrous statement when I say that the Minister, for whom I have nothing but the greatest respect, is a longterm ally of Germany. That seems an extreme statement. Let me analyse it.
What differentiates the German method of making war from the older method of making war? In the old days, armies fought against armies. To-day, armies fight against civilians and armies alike. There was a great deal of force in the speech recently made by the Minister of Labour, when he talked about the outcome not of this war, but of the next one, and when he pointed out that the whole strategy of Germany was devised

either for victory now, or the certainty of victory next time, by so defeating, not merely the military, but the civilian strength, that what they cannot do today, they might hope to do some years hence. That is the whole explanation of the policy of starving the occupied countries, of deporting their men, and mobilising their women, and of lowering the standard of life. That is part of a considered German plan, not only for this war but for 20 years hence. The Parliamentary Secretary, with the best intentions in the world, does not realise that he is acting as an ally in that German policy, and that is what I meant by what I said a few moments ago.
The third point is that I wonder whether this House begins to realise the kind of conditions that are going to exist in Europe when the war is over. I remarked in a speech during a Debate recently, that the impact of the war upon this country has been four or five times what it was last time, and that the problems of peace will become correspondingly more difficult. If that is true of this country it is infinite more true of Europe. I sometimes wonder what those countries think. They must sometimes say to themselves, "We do not know who hurts us more, our friends or our enemies."
We are accomplices in this act of starving Europe, and we are left to-day with no excuse for what we do, because the food is there, the shipping is there. [An HON. MEMBER: "Where?"] Must I refer the hon. Member to the joint statement by the Prime Minister and President Roosevelt? We are told that the shipping position is easier, and the food position certainly is. I would welcome a 20 or 30 per cent. cut in our own standard of life in Great Britain if, as a result of it, we could save some hundreds of thousands of Belgian, French, and other children. I promised to sit down in five minutes, and I shall do so, but I beg the Minister not to give us a narrow departmental view on this. I beg him to think of the blockade weapon as only one among many. I ask him to believe that the nearer we get to the end of the war the less important is the blockade weapon. I beg him to have an eye to the future, because, believe me, if Europe is to be rebuilt on a basis that will endure, one of the first things we have to inject into Europe is the spirit of humanity and common goodness, the lack


of which is our chief charge against the enemy whom we are now fighting. The hon. Gentleman had a noble father, who sat in this House, and who is still alive. He was a great man, and there are elements of greatness in the hon. Member. I ask him to let these elements express themselves, and not constrict them within the narrow limits of a departmental policy which makes half Europe ashamed of us, and half of us ashamed of ourselves.

The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Economic Warfare (Mr. Dingle Foot): I should like as shortly as possible to answer at any rate the main points which have been made in this Debate and also some of the appeals that have been made. There was the appeal that was made by my hon. Friend the Member for the Combined English Universities (Mr. E. Harvey) when he drew a moving analogy with the priest and the Levite. I wish he had carried his analogy a little further and told us what the Good Samaritan would have done in similar circumstances. One wonders whether even the Good Samaritan would have been quite so ready to pay out his twopence for the maintenance of the victim if he had known that a penny or three-halfpence was to be paid directly for the benefit of the thieves. I make no complaint at all that this matter should be raised again after a comparatively short interval, but I must remind the House that this issue was fully debated on 8th July, and on that occasion I explained, I am afraid at considerable length, the reasons for the Government's policy, and I must make it quite clear that nothing has happened to cause the Government to change the view which I then expressed.
I fully understand, of course, the anxiety which many people both inside and outside this House feel when they contemplate conditions in the occupied countries under German rule. I have no doubt—I am not speaking about hon. Members who have taken part in this Debate—that most of those who conduct the agitation outside for relaxing the blockade do so for the most worthy humanitarian reasons. But that does not alter the fact that the propaganda which is so freely disseminated on this subject through the country conveys a wholly distorted picture of what the conditions are, No one denies for a single moment the fact that there are great hardships in the occupied countries.

It is perfectly true that in the urban districts there are very distinct shortages, particularly of meat and of fats. But the impression which is so sedulously created that practically the whole of occupied Europe is in a condition of famine at this moment is entirely misleading. The explanation why it is not so is, of course, perfectly simple, It is that as a general rule it does not suit the Germans to create starvation in countries which they have to garrison and from which they want production and labour.
We have had a number of references particularly to one or two countries. It did strike me as a little odd that not a single speaker so far has given us a single figure as to what the actual rations are. Let me take the present case in Belgium. That has been the country most frequently referred to. The actual rations of the normal consumer in Belgium, that is to say, the lowest category of consumer—as the House knows, there are supplementary rations for heavy workers and miners and other particular classes at the present time, and these rations are now generally available—the weekly rations for a normal consumer in Belgium include 62 ounces of bread, five ounces of meat, three and a half ounces of fats and over 100 ounces of potatoes. There are higher rations for other classes of consumers, and children under three and nursing and expectant mothers receive nine pints of milk a week. That also is generally available. I am not suggesting for one moment.—

Mr. H. Nicolson: Does the hon. Gentleman know what children of school age receive?

Mr. Foot: As I was about to say, there are shortages for children of school age and the milk rations are not always available for them. These figures however do not represent a starvation diet, and there is certainly no comparison between the standard they represent and the state of affairs which prevailed in Greece when the present relief scheme was first instituted there.
The hon. Member for West Leicester (Mr. H. Nicolson) referred to the vital statistics in Belgium. I was a little puzzled why he did not quote them, because statistics, particularly of infantile mortality, have been given in the House on more than one occasion. Let me take


the number of deaths in Belgium for the last four years. In 1939 they numbered 110,000, in 1940, 125,000—I am giving the round figures—in 1941, 120,000, and in 1942, 121,000. I do not say that the years 1939 and 1942 are exactly comparable, because of course there were considerable changes in the size of the population. All I am saying is that these figures convey an impression which is considerably different from that which is frequently given in this country about conditions in occupied territories.

Mr. Stokes: Can the hon. Member give us the figures on the fall in population?

Mr. Foot: I have only a few moments in which to reply, but, as I said, there has been a fall in the population, and therefore I am not trying to make an exact comparison. I give these figures, not because I want for one moment to minimise the hardships being suffered in occupied territories, but to show how misleading are many statements which are now being widely made on the conditions in occupied Europe. I am bound to say that I cannot see what useful purpose is being served by this constant presentation of a wholly distorted picture.
I come to the speech of my hon. Friend the Member for Ipswich (Mr. Stokes), and perhaps I might take his points in historical order. He started off by referring to the Hoover scheme in the last war. I am not going to dwell on that for more than a moment, because, as the hon. Member for West Leicester said, it is not generally proposed that we should repeat that experiment. But at any rate it gives us some guidance to-day because it was suggested, I think by the hon. Member for Edgbaston (Sir P. Bennett) that if anything ever went wrong with the relief scheme we would at once know and we could stop the relief. That was not the experience of the last war. When the United States came into the last war and the Hoover Committee had to retire from Belgium and Northern France they had to hand over their work to a Dutch-Spanish Committee. That Committee found very considerable evasion of the conditions of the scheme which had been going on during the time the Hoover Commission was there, entirely undetected by that Commission.

Mr. Stokes: Is that report available?

Mr. Foot: I am perfectly willing at any time to give the facts on that, either in answer to a question or in any other way. I have myself studied the records of that scheme, which were kindly made available to me by the Foreign Office. I do not think anybody who studies them and sees how the scheme worked from day to day can have the slightest doubt that it was of the greatest assistance to the Germans, enabling them to lay their hands on far larger quantities of native produce than they could otherwise have obtained, and that it relieved them of the obligation they have had to discharge in this war to make available cereals and other foodstuffs from their own supplies.

Mr. Stokes: Is the hon. Gentleman intending to convey the impression that I was advocating the introduction of the Hoover scheme? I never said anything of the sort.

Mr. Foot: As my hon. Friend referred to the scheme in the last war, it seemed to me that there was some guidance to be drawn from the experience of that scheme, which is almost the only complete experience on which we are able to draw. On this occasion we refused to relieve the Germans of their obligations, whether legal or moral. The enemy has had to send in hundreds of thousand tons of grain from his own stocks. If we had repeated the experience of the last war, can anyone seriously doubt that that grain would now be forming part of the German reserves? My hon. Friend asked about the Hoover scheme in this war. I do not want to dwell on that matter. It is true that a representative of Mr. Hoover's organisation went to Berlin in February, 1941, and put a relief scheme before the German Government. It has been suggested that, in substance at any rate, the German Government accepted that scheme. I must make it clear that our attitude would not have been altered whatever the German Government's reply might have been, but I ask hon. Members to read very carefully the document, which I quoted in full in the last Debate, which was handed by tit:, German Government to the League of Red Cross Societies. It will be seen that the German reply fell very far short of a complete or unequivocal acceptance.
My hon. Friend went on to refer to the views on blockade and the position of food in the contraband list expressed by


the Soviet Government at the beginning of this war, and asked whether we had any reason to suppose that their views had changed. As I informed my hon. Friend the Member for Aberavon (Mr. Cove) a few days ago, we have not received any further communication on this subject from the Soviet Government since Soviet Russia became a belligerent. But it has been our experience, both in the last war and in this, that when a country ceases to be a neutral and becomes a belligerent its views on these matters undergoes some sensible modification. I have not the time to deal with all these complicated issues, but if hon. Members wish to see a complete answer put forward on the question of food and the contraband list they will see it admirably set out in a pamphlet, "Blockade and the Civil Population," by Sir William Beveridge, a document which I think deserves as close a study as Sir William Beveridge's other publications. I pass over some of the other points raised. My hon. Friend referred to the legal position. I can only refer him to a reply which I gave in the House a few days ago.

Mr. Stokes: That does not answer the question at all. I am asking whether, under the Hague Convention of 1907, there is an obligation on the occupying Power to make good shortages which come from outside the blockaded area? Where in the Convention is that to be found?

Mr. Foot: It is clear from the answer I gave that we are not basing ourselves wholly in this matter on the Hague Convention. The Hague Convention carries with it a negative obligation, that the occupying troops shall not loot available supplies and that in any requisitions they make they shall have regard to the needs of the native population. Both obligations have been wholly ignored by the German occupying authorities and by the occupying forces. The German occupation has gone very much farther than a mere military occupation. It has involved in every case the most complete and detailed control over the national life of each country concerned, In each case the Germans have harnessed the factories, the mines, the transport and the man-power to the German war machine. It follows that they should be prepared to assume corresponding obligations for the maintenance of the people whom they are using in their

war effort. I pass to the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for West Leicester. He told us that it was the German policy to impose malnutrition in nearly every occupied country, and he urged us to take steps to defeat that policy. Frankly, I was surprised to hear an argument of that kind coming from my hon. Friend. It must be apparent that nothing can go into any occupied country except with the permission of the German Government. Is it really conceivable that the German Government would allow supplies of food to pass through the blockade and reach those people if it were clear that the effect would be to defeat their own deliberate policy?
I come to the Greek scheme. As the House knows, we have the advantage of a Swedish-Swiss Commission in Athens. We have met most of the requests which have been made to us by that Commission. There have been one or two requests which it has not been possible to meet, for supply reasons. When the ships were sailing the particular commodities were not available. All I can say is that we have had the advantage of meeting Mr. Exintaris, and also of having in London recently Mr. Mohn, one of the Swedish representatives on the Commission. My Noble Friend and I have discussed with both the present conditions in Greece. It may be possible—I will not put it higher, because I do not want to create disappointment—to meet some of the requests. The neutral Commission has done most admirable work, and, as has been stated on more than one occasion, the imported foodstuffs have, as far as we know, been distributed by the Commission without interference from the occupying authorities. But, although my statements to that effect have been frequently quoted in public speeches and in the Press, not very much emphasis is generally laid on the other statements that I have generally made at the same time in this House, that we are not satisfied with the working of the safeguards for Greek domestic produce. I gave this answer only the other day to my hon. Friend the Member for Aberavon:
In the late summer of this year Greek crops were requisitioned or destroyed in certain areas, allegedly as a reprisal for guerilla activities. The authorities in charge of the relief scheme who protested against these proceedings were informed that steps would be taken to avoid such incidents being repeated.


I must, however, make it clear that any repetition would be regarded by His Majesty's Government as being in effect a breach of the conditions of the scheme."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 26th October, 1943; cols. 40–1, Vol. 393.]
The House knows that we did make this special exception in the case of Greece, but no one should believe on that account that the enemy derives no advantage from the scheme. He most certainly does. Atter the defeat of Rommel the German attitude towards Greece, at any rate in economic matters, tended to undergo a change. Greece became once more a possible theatre of military operations, with the result that, much more than before, the enemy found need for Greek labour. To some extent that labour was available to him because of the food that we had allowed to pass through the blockade. I do not for one moment regret that we did it, but it is an illustration of what I am certain is true in all these ratters, that, if you relax the blockade, you are bound to bring some degree of benefit, direct or indirect, to the enemy. There is no such thing in these matters, certainly where you have an army of occupation, as a completely watertight scheme and the question that has to be decided in each case is whether the possible advantage to our friends outweighs the certain advantage to the enemy. In the case of Greece, and Greece alone, we decided that it did.
I come to the point which was made by my hon. Friend the Member for Rugby (Mr. W. Brown). He raised the general issue as to the place of the blockade in our present strategy. He asked whether I regard it in any way as a substitute for military operations on the Eastern front or for possible operations in the West. I do not suggest, and no one connected with my Department ever has suggested, that the blockade is a substitute for defeating the enemy in the field. What we say—and we are reinforced by the experience of the last war—is that it is an essential part of total war. If you had had an unblockaded Germany, able to import freely from overseas, then it would have been a Germany which would have been much more formidable in the military sense. It is true that the German food situation is better than it was in 1918; it is a good deal worse than ours, but it is still better than it was in 1918. It is relevant to this subject to consider just how that has been

achieved. It has been achieved because the German Government, in Germany alone, have placed 1,000,000 extra workers on the land since 1939. That is one of the main reasons for the present man-power crisis in Germany. Those 1,000,000 workers are in effect manning Germany's economic defences, and in this war, you can reduce almost every modern problem into terms of man-power. In this matter it is not possible for us to draw a valid distinction between Germany and the occupied territories. The political differences remain, but in the economic sense the occupied territories are all part of German Europe and are contributing in precisely the same way to the German war effort. In this country we have had one piece of singular good fortune. We receive lend-lease supplies for which we do not need to send exports in exchange. If we had to produce those supplies from our own resources or our own soil, or if we had to manufacture goods to send in exchange, then our own war effort would be considerably less than it is at the present time. If you are going to let in, in substantial quantities, all relief foodstuffs, to German-occupied Europe at this time it is going to be a form of lend-lease to the enemy.
Already we have to face very great commitments indeed. Not only have we to meet the needs of our Russian Allies, and not only have we had to meet the requirements of North Africa—and these have been considerable—but there are likely to be very considerable needs in any area which is liberated from German domination. We may be faced in many cases with a scorched earth policy, and in such cases the needs of those areas may prove even greater than those of the present occupied territories. We shall have to meet a very large commitment, and I do not think at this moment we can possibly add to it a vast, unspecified commitmént of the type which has been proposed here to-day.

Mr. Harvey: We are not asking that we should make any commitment ourselves, but that we should give navicerts to the Belgium Government to bring in a small amount at their own expense and not from our resources.

It being the hour appointed for the interruption of Business, the Motion for the Adjournment of the House lapsed, without Question put.

Motion made, and Question proposed, "That this House do now adjourn."—[Mr. Drewe.]

Mr. Foot: All these supplies will have to come from precisely the same sources—the sources which are available to the United Nations. We shall be told that that is not what is contemplated and that all that is wanted is that comparatively small quantities should be allowed to go in. The hon. Member for West Leicester remarked rightly that I represent what is a Ministry of denial. We have had three years' experience in running the blockade, and constantly, in fact almost every day of our lives in relation to food or to some other commodity which it is desired to pass inward or pass outward, we are asked to make a concession on the grounds that the quantity is so small that it could make no real difference to the position of the enemy. We have this from experience, and it was also the experience of the last war, that you cannot admit one claim if you intend to refuse a great many others which are equally valid.
It is suggested that we should make some token shipments to particular areas. Then we should need to adopt a test of special need and to say that the particular token supplies should go to this area or to that area where the need happened to be particularly acute. We would be saying in effect that we would relax the blockade in any case where people were particularly necessitous or particularly hungry. I cannot imagine a greater disservice to the people in German-occupied countries than to adopt, either expressly or by implication, a principle of that kind. It means that we would be providing the enemy with a direct and a very powerful inducement to create extreme shortage over much wider areas. We know from experience that he would not hesitate to do it, and therefore we do not propose to lay ourselves open to this particular form of German blackmail.

NAVAL REPATRIATIONS FROM ITALY

Mr. McKinlay: I desire to pursue a Question which I addressed to the right hon. Gentleman the First Lord of the Admiralty on 20th October. I asked the First Lord on that date to state

the terms of the agreement under which 787 officers and men were repatriated from Italy in March, 1943, and the terms of the document signed by such officers and men before they were exchanged?
My right hon. Friend replied:
I would refer my right hon. Friend to the statement made to this House by the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs on 24th March last, in which he fully explained the circumstances leading to the agreement for the repatriation of these officers and men. The agreement reached with enemy Governments contained no special terms. The documents which were signed by such officers and men before they were exchanged, were discharge sheets containing a statement of pay received and an authorisation for the disposal of outstanding balances."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 20th October, 1943; col. 1369, Vol. 392.]
This is the outcome of a letter I received from one of my constituents on 11th August relating to his son, a survivor from H.M.S. "Sikh," which was lost at Tobruk. This young man was taken prisoner and spent a considerable time in an Italian prison camp. In my letter to the First Lord, I explained that when this young man joined up he was minus a kidney, that while in prison camp he suffered from pneumonia and that when he arrived in this country in June he was, shortly afterwards, again listed for active service. I asked the First Lord in that letter, whether he could explain to me the conditions under which the men were repatriated. The First Lord was good enough to reply stating the position of the man, together with that of the 786 other officers and men. The First Lord said that had the man been sick or wounded and repatriated, under the provisions of Article 68 of the Geneva Convention, he would have come within Article 74 which prohibits the employment of certain repatriated prisoners on active military service. He said that the seaman in question was not, however, repatriated under the terms of the Convention but by virtue of a special agreement.
That is the crux of the whole question. In my Question I asked what were the terms of the agreement, and I was referred to an answer given by the Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs. Well, with all due deference to the First Lord—he and I are quite good friends—I want to remind him that Mr. Barnum said, "There is one born every minute." There is no answer in the answer to which I was referred. There is reference to an agreement, to the removal of 700 Italian


sailors and, in exchange under that agreement, the repatriation of British prisoners. I want to know what were the terms of that agreement. Were the men's names drawn out of the lucky bag, at random? Were the men removed from the Italian prison camp because they were suffering from disability? If they were removed, while in no way suffering from the effects of the war, then I protest against 787 able-bodied men being repatriated while at the same time we must have had in prison camps in Italy men who sorely needed bringing home. The answer of the First Lord himself was much more informative than the answer given by the Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs.
He at least drew my attention to the Geneva Convention, though I had never asked about it. I have had letters from other personnel. I have one from a lad writing to his parents from hospital. When he arrived at this place he was put through all the motions preparing him for active service again. Some of the men protested. It was suggested to them that they ought to "hush-hush" about it. In other words, it was conveyed to them that they were lucky. They were home. I want to know why a man who had to swim for it at Tobruk and who has suffered pneumonia twice, plus starvation in an Italian camp, finds himself now, on the certificate of the port officer, almost in the category of Grade I with nothing to prevent him returning to active service.
Surely if a Minister enters into an agreement on behalf of this country, we are entitled to ask what are the terms of the agreement. I stated that these men signed a declaration that they would not take up arms again against the Axis. The Minister did not give me an emphatic denial. He said he would be surprised to know that. I am speaking for the whole of these 787 men, because we are entitled to know these things. They are not fellows picked up from the street corner who can neither read nor write. I have conveyed to my sons, who are in the same Service, that they need never worry about their financial records. The Admiralty are so meticulously careful now as to how they stand in a financial sense, that they will bring in your pay record up to date and give you a

document showing exactly how the contracting parties stand. I cannot believe that the only document that was signed was one relating to wages. One of these young men was educated at one of the principal public schools in Glasgow and he can read. His family is a well known one, with a business which was established 175 years ago, and they are not prepared to resort to subterfuges even to save the skin of their boys. What I could not get was the answer to a question which I am asking now: Can we have the specific terms under which these men were repatriated? Can we have a specific declaration that no document was signed to the effect that they would not take up arms against the Axis during this war? That is a simple proposition.
I would rather that the terms of the agreement were made accessible to hon. Members so that they could examine it for themselves. It must have been a matter of great expediency, it must have been carried through in an ungodly rush, but what I am very concerned about is that an allegation should be made against the Government that they are prepared to send men who are not physically fit back on to the active list. Everyone expects a man on the active list to do his duty and I think 99 per cent. of those in the Services, who have good health, desire to do their duty. But we have an obligation to the men in the Services and while it is true it may be an offence for a Service man to write to his Member of Parliament we should not forget that obligation. This young man writing from the hospital to his father says, "Please keep my name out of this if you get into touch with Adam McKinlay, because if you do not I am for it." There is one thing which you cannot take away. You cannot take away the responsibility of parents to their boys, even to their boys in the Services, and I want the First Lord in the short time at his disposal to answer the points which I have put. I do not accuse him of trying deliberately to push a man back into the Forces but I say this, that if the man I have in view, or the man on whose behalf I originally wrote, is sent, without previous notice, to any medical specialist in this country nominated either by the Admiralty or by myself and if they pass that man as Grade I you can name whatever naval charity you care, and there will be a substantial donation—and what goes for that young man goes for most of the young men involved in this


case. I hope the First Lord will pursue this matter and give us the satisfaction to which we are entitled.

The First Lord of the Admiralty (Mr. A. V. Alexander): I welcome the fact that my hon. Friend has raised this matter in open Session, because it is essential that the facts should be known, in view of the manner in which the matter has been discussed in the past. We have not had it at any other time than Question time. First, let me make it plain -mat the agreement, as I said in my answer to my hon. Friend, had nothing to do with Article 68 of the Geneva Convention and therefore none of the terms of Article 74 could come into play. Secondly, the Italian naval personnel with whom the exchange was made, were not really prisoners of war in the sense that they were prisoners held by us. We exchanged with the Italians 788 men who had been sunk just off the coast of Saudi Arabia and who were interned by that neutral Power. Considerable difficulties and inconveniences were found with regard to the feeding and general attention to these people and moreover, when we were at the stage of being rolled back in the direction of the Nile Delta, it was not convenient for us to have persons interned who might escape and get out on our lines of communication. So we desired to exchange these men who were interned and who weft fit men and it would have been unreasonable in those circumstances and certainly in view of the general stricture upon our man power situation, for us then to have said, "We will exchange for these 788 able-bodied Italians, interned in a neutral country, 788 sick and wounded." A perfectly separate agreement, apart from the Geneva Convention, was made in which the 788 Italian naval internees in Saudi Arabia were exchanged for 788 British naval prisoners of war in Italy. That is what we did. The terms of the Geneva Convention and the operation of Section 74 with regard to sick and wounded do not apply to this case at all. These are the terms of the agreement. That is what my hon. Friend really wants to know.
The second point that he puts to me is whether or not these men signed an undertaking not to take up arms again. We have had that matter very carefully inquired into as far as we have been able to get the facts since my hon. Friend

raised it in the House, and I have had inquiries made both at the Portsmouth and the Devonport barracks by the Commodore, a very responsible officer, who has interviewed a considerable number of the ratings concerned who were exchanged and who has spoken with the senior naval officer of the party who was exchanged and who was himself a prisoner of war—a responsible and educated person—who was able to understand what was being done. While, of course, he could not give the Admiralty an assurance that there was not a single man who had signed some such document put to him by the Italians, what he could say was that no such document was submitted to any man he knew and certainly not to himself or any brother officer. Indeed, if the Italians had put such a proposition to any one of them, they would have been breaking the terms of the agreement. All I would say to my hon. Friend is that it some educated person among the ratings who understood Italian did sign such a document, then he must give me more facts of that kind, which would involve not only checking the statement of the man concerned, but taking the matter up with the Italians as a breach of the agreement.
One or two of the ratings said that perhaps the sergeant who was in charge of the handing over of some of them said, "You are out of the war. You won't have to serve again," and that is the maximum we have been able to get. The terms of the agreement make it perfectly clear that it was an exchange of able-bodied men on both sides. I do not want my hon. Friend to submit to this House or to the public that if under a separate agreement of that kind we get able-bodied men we should say they should not serve again in the war. There are other men who also have fathers and mothers, who go through a campaign, are wounded, recover and go back into the campaign again. Whether these men are tit or not to go on with their duty will have to be determined from the medical examination and the hospital treatment that they receive. As regards the particular young man in whom my hon. Friend is interested and of whose physical disabilities he feels he can be very certain, if he will supply any further medical evidence about which he wishes me to make inquiry, I will have it gone into. Nobody would want to see a man sent back to active service if he is not fit.

Mr. McKinlay: Is the right hon. Gentleman trying to suggest that a man who is minus a kidney before he goes into the Service is a fit man to serve on a destroyer?

Mr. Alexander: If a man is minus a kidney, it does not sound very good to me. It all depends what he is capable of. We surely must take the medical view. I submit that the general results of the call-up, the examination and the treatment of men in this war have not been such as to bring grave reflection upon either the standard or the adequacy of the treatment which the men have received. I do not think that could be borne out at all. Indeed, as regards the Admiralty, we have not only very able medical officers in the respective posts, but we have some of the highest consultants of Harley Street and other great consulting centres who are at our service the whole time, and whose services we never hesitate to solicit in any particular case where treatment is required.
I think I have put the case fairly to my hon. Friend, as I do want to stress again before I sit down that in this case there is no question at all about an exchange of sick, wounded and unfit prisoners. It is a question of exchanging for Italian internees from a neutral country who were becoming a nuisance to us as being on our lines of communication, for able-bodied naval ratings taken from us and who were in Italy. On that basis, I am afraid I cannot revise any decision that we have already arrived at.

Mr. McKinlay: Is it understood that from the beginning it was an exchange of able-bodied men against able-bodied men?

Mr. Alexander: Most certainly, that was the basis of the agreement between Italy and ourselves. We asked for no single undertaking from any of the 788 Italians that they would not fight again.

Question, "That this House do now adjourn," put, and agreed to.